Chuck versus The Fish Out of Temporal Water
by louzeyre
Summary: First sequel to Chuck versus The Do Over: Its Summer 2008 in Chuckverse B. Fulcrum is gone. Sarah and Chuck are living together. He's begun to answer her questions about his other timeline. And someone else seems to be splashing around in the time stream.
1. Chuck versus The Ghost

_AN: This a sequel to my previous story Chuck versus The Do Over. It probably won't make a lot of sense if you haven't read that. If you really want to jump in at this point this is what you absolutely need to know:_

_During a mission in 2011 (prior to Chuck versus Agent X) Chuck is zapped by an unknown man and wakes up in his own younger body the morning after his twentieth Birthday: September 19, 2001. The story than fast forwards to a little more than a month before season one begins. It's gradually revealed that, in the meantime, Chuck has attempted and failed to find a way back to his original timeline, and has since accepted his new reality and tried to do things to "fix" this timeline in a variety of ways. The most important of these changes eventually lead to Casey becoming part of Alex's life in 2002, Mary and Stephen Bartowski being reunited and making Volkoff "disappear" in 2005, Sarah and Chuck becoming a couple in late 2007 and Fulcrum being destroyed in early 2008, among other things._

_For those of you who did read the previous stories, here are things that still might be helpful to know: Katie Cleary played Laura, the Volkoff employee who helped Marco hijack Casey and Sarah's plane, in Anniversary, Suitcase and Cubic Z. She is 5' 8 ½" tall. _

_I should also say, that this chapter involve something that has become a bit of a Chuck fan fiction trope in its own right. It didn't start out that way (the idea that it grew out of has been percolating in my head since way back when I first started the story and its gone through pretty much every permutation possible) and I hope if it bothers you, you're willing to bear with me until it leads into a more unique territory. _

_As always constructive criticism or comments of any kind are welcome._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck. I also do not own TV Tropes, which inspired the name of this story. Or Mission Impossible II. _

Chuck versus The Ghost

**May 12, 2008**

Chuck shifted slightly, finding a more comfortable position on the towel. He had never really been a fan of sunbathing, or really any activity that required him to take off his shirt in front of more than a select few people, but with a bikini clad Sarah stretched out next to him he was beginning to see the appeal. The drinks weren't bad either.

They had decided to use their time off to take an actual vacation, setting off to somewhere warm and beachy as soon as possible. The last week and a half they'd spent alternating between the resorts various activities and their own more private activities in their room. And a cabana. And the little boat they rented one afternoon. But today Sarah had finally dragged him down to the beach with no plans in mind other than to lie out and relax.

Which is of why it shouldn't have been a surprise when, as soon as Sarah stood up and started heading towards the water, both their phones began to ring. Chuck let out a frustrated sigh and briefly contemplated simply throwing the phones into the water. It wouldn't have mattered. He knew Graham wouldn't stop until he reached them, whether it be via telephone call, a torpedo filled with self-destructing glasses or a group of armed men. And So, reluctantly he reached over and picked up his phone, and waived for Sarah to come back.

**XXX**

They ended up in the backroom of the nearest American consulate with both Graham and Beckman staring at them from the screen. A grumpy looking Casey was shown in an insert in the upper corner. Graham and Beckman started by pulling up a mug shot.

"That's the brunette waitress, from the Grand Saville." Chuck stated.

"Correct, Agent Bartowski. Her name is Laura Cleary. Two weeks ago she was helped to escape from prison by this man." Every muscle in Chuck's body tensed when Beckman brought up the photo. His teeth clenched.

"His name is Daniel Shaw. He was a former Special Agent with the CIA." Beckman said, looking rather sourly.

"After Mr. Shaw's wife was killed in an automobile accident three years ago he became, unstable. He believed that there was a conspiracy behind his wife's death. He became obsessed with it. When all of his leads ran dry he became even more off kilter. An order was put out to bring him into a CIA psychiatric institution for evaluation and treatment. Someone warned him, however, and he has been off the grid ever since." Graham told them. Chuck stared at the screen, slightly in shock.

He didn't know whether to believe Graham's explanation for Eve's death, but whatever had happened, something had changed. Something that had turned Shaw towards his darker tendencies earlier. Or perhaps he was being naïve. From what he had been able to tell from Shaw's case file, even in the first timeline, Shaw had been edging towards more than a few psychoses. Normal people don't burn off a man's face. The difference was that Graham had been able to harness that obsession and focus it at the Ring.

"How did he gain access to the prison?" Sarah asked, cutting short Chuck's pondering. On the screen he saw Beckman gave a short glare towards Graham.

"When we realized that Shaw was not going to be located, we made a decision to keep his situation confidential." Graham said. He cleared his throat somewhat uncomfortably. "Shaw was privy to a number of very classified operations. We hoped to minimize the number of people aware of his, condition, in hopes of avoiding someone taking advantage of it."

"You didn't want the criminals to know one of your golden boys was running around with a screw loose and a bunch of secrets ready for them to shake free." Casey said, somewhat uncharacteristically. Apparently his deference to authority figures had been overruled by his dislike of the CIA in general and the CIA doing something stupid in particular. Chuck couldn't help but agree.

"Due to Director Graham's decision, not all of Mr. Shaw's former contacts and colleagues were aware of his status. He convinced one of them to grant him access to Ms. Cleary, under the guise of a top secret operation." Beckman shot another glare towards Graham.

"Why bring this to our attention now?" Sarah asked. Graham's sour lips manages to stretch just a tad into a frown before she reached over, bringing up a photograph to replace her section of the screen. Chuck had to swallow down the gorge that came up his throat. It was Shaw. A very dead and slightly decayed Shaw.

"His body was found early this morning at a resort in Italy. Preliminary reports place his time of death at close to a week ago."

"What was the cause of death?" Chuck found himself asking.

"His carotid artery was severed." Graham answered.

"Our current theory is that Cleary turned on him after he helped her get out of the country." Beckman told them. "We want you to find Cleary. And to find out what she and Shaw were up to." Chuck thought a moment before addressing the screen.

"We're going to need his file, and Cleary's." Chuck said.

"Very well." Beckman stated.

"And his wife's, to see if the connection is through her." He added, watching Graham's reaction carefully.

"Of course." The director spoke with even a momentary pause. As the briefing finished up all Chuck could think was, what the frak had happened?

**XXX**

Chuck's thoughts and emotions were swirling. While he couldn't help but feel some relief that he wouldn't have to deal with Shaw or his betrayal, that relief was overshadowed by anxiety. Most people might have been relieved that this universe's doppelganger of the man who killed his father was dead, but Chuck knew that every change created ripples and this could potentially create a new danger for his family. One he hadn't anticipated and wouldn't be able to predict or control. He could have gotten his father to wear a bullet proof vest when they went to confront the Ring. He couldn't get him to stay inside a bubble for the rest of his life. Those were concerns for the future, however. Chuck's main source of anxiety in the present was Sarah.

Chuck couldn't stop himself from glancing over towards his girlfriend as they sat, waiting for the CIA plane to take off. Each time he wondered if she would suddenly show some reaction to the files they were combing through. They had rushed back to the hotel to pack, before leaving for Italy. While a CIA team had taken care of the body, Beckman and Graham wanted them to sweep the room, searching for something that the team might have missed.

By the time they had gotten back to their hotel room, the electronic version of the three files had already been sent. He opened Evelyn's first in hopes of getting the inevitable over with as quickly as possible. But there had been no reaction. He hadn't been sure how to stop Eve's death. Unlike with Amy, he wasn't in a position to act as an analyst on her files. He had ended up sending an anonymous tip, but he hadn't expected Graham to actually act on it at that point. Especially since, after going through Eve's files himself, he wasn't entirely convinced she wasn't working for the Ring. When Sarah was promoted to being a full agent around the time she would have been in the original timeline, he had assumed he had failed and reconciled himself to that fact.

While Chuck had tried to answers Sarah's many, many questions about his other timeline during their vacation, between all the various distractions they had found at the resort and with each other he had only gotten through telling her the aftermath of Ellie's wedding. And so, he had been bracing himself since Graham agreed to send over the files.

Sarah hadn't reacted, at all. No gasp, no look of recognition, nothing. During their time wrapped up in each other on the train leaving Paris, the Other Sarah had shared with him that she remembered everything about her red test. It had been burned into her mind, including the only thing she had been given to identify her victim: a photograph. Chuck couldn't image that this Sarah wouldn't feel the same way. Now, Chuck wasn't sure what had happened, or why.

He had hurried to pack, hurried as he checked out of the room and hurried as he headed towards the airport. He hurried in hopes of appearing too busy for Sarah to have a chance to ask her inevitable questions.

He knew that he had told Sarah he wouldn't lie to her, but he couldn't help but wonder, would it really be in her best interest to tell her exactly what had happened? To burden her with a mistake she hadn't actually made? Especially when the only people that would be involved were already dead.

He supposed he could tell her everything but the fact that she had been Graham's trigger man. He could simply allow her to infer that Shaw had taken her hostage because of her ties to the agency and her recent rejection. If he simply avoided saying anything about it specifically, that wouldn't be lying, right?

Of course, as she had pointed out to him repeatedly, Sarah and the Other Sarah, weren't the same person. There was no reason to believe she would feel any kind of guilt or burden from finding out the truth. And, while Sarah, both Sarahs, had forgiven him for keeping secrets, they had only done so under the belief that he wouldn't continue to lie. Would it really be worth betraying that trust to protect Sarah from the knowledge of a choice she could have made, but didn't? He knew firsthand how it felt when people kept the truth from him for his own good. It was condescending. It made him doubt his own strength. At the same time, as resilient as Sarah was, she had already taken on a burden in knowing all his secrets. Wouldn't it be better if she didn't have to carry this as well?

"Spit it out."

"What." Chuck said, startled. He turned and looked towards his girlfriend. She was giving him a knowing, and slightly annoyed look.

"I saw the way you reacted to Shaw's picture. You obviously knew him, and if it was in this timeline you would have said something during the briefing. So whatever it is from the other timeline that has you so worked up you've barely said a word to me since we left the consulate, just tell me. I'll even ignore the fact that you obviously were contemplating not telling me, despite your promise to be honest. Then we can deal with it, and deal with this mission." She told him, disappointingly logically. He bit his lip, studying her expectant, slightly exasperated, face. Then he let out a long breath.

"Right. So, remember how I said Awesome found out I was a spy?"

**XXX**

Casey was not happy. He had been enjoying his time off. He had spent some time with Alex. Even gotten a chance to talk some with Kathleen. And now, because of a couple of CIA idiots he was flying out of the country instead of helping his daughter with last minute studying for her AP Economic tests. Sure his help mostly involved keeping Alex supplied with caffeine and snacks, and shuffling her off to bed at a reasonable hour, but he hadn't exactly had a lot of opportunities to act like a real father. If this mission meant he missed the end- of testing celebration dinner he'd been planning for this weekend, Shaw had better be grateful he was already dead.

Walker and Bartowski met him at the air field. He gave them a nod of acknowledgement, then grabbed his bag, following the pair out towards a waiting car.

"Find anything?" He asked. Casey wasn't a slouch in the brain department, but that just meant he was all the more aware of just how much better suited Bartowski was to analysis work than he was.

"We haven't been able to find anything in the files that connects either of the Shaws with Laura or Volkoff. " Bartowski told him, clearly frustrated.

"We even checked into whether Shaw might have been working for someone else, but the only major transactions on any of his accounts recently were withdrawals." Sarah added. Casey gave grunt of his mutual frustration, and allowed the two of them to bounce around theories as they headed out towards the resort.

**XXX**

When Beckman and Graham had told them that they would be searching through Shaw and Cleary's room after the CIA cleaners, he had assumed that they would have actually cleaned. Whether due to Beckman's and Graham's instructions, or not when they arrived it was apparent that the only thing that the cleaners had done was remove Shaw's body. Everything else appeared mostly still in place, although they had, thankfully, removed the white comforter from the bed that Chuck had originally mistook for being died brownish red in the pictures of the scene.

The three of them split up, searching the room. There was glass covering the floor. Picking up a piece to exam it, Chuck realized that it was from a bottle. He glanced around, and noticed the champagne cooler still sitting in the corner. Walking over towards the bed, he noticed something sticking out from underneath. He leaned down, and pulled out the bottom of a blue box. After a bit of searching he found the matching top. Tiffany & Co. was written in black across the top.

"I think I know what the connection was between Laura and Shaw." He said, standing and holding up the box. Casey simply stared at him.

"You think she was his girlfriend?" Sarah asked, glancing around the room.

"She was sort of his type. Tall. Good looking. Able to kick butt if needed. " Chuck pointed out, then quickly added, "The evil version of his type." Before Sarah could comment on his assessment, Casey let out an annoyed grunt.

"So I got dragged away from my vacation time to deal with a lover's spat?"

"A spat between a rogue CIA agent and an arms dealer." Chuck pointed out. "Maybe he was a mark?"

Sarah crouched down, picking up something from the floor. "No." Sarah shook her head. "She might have taken a piece of jewelry a mark gave her, but I doubt she would have taken these." Sarah said, standing up. Chuck moved towards her, taking the album. It had been emptied, leaving lighter outlines of not only photographs, but also what looked like ticket stubs and cards.

"They're worthless, unless you count sentimental value."

"So, he smugglers her out of jail, takes her on vacation, then they fight about, something." Chuck said, working through what they had found. He turned his eyes following the pattern of glass along the floor, to one blood tinted piece beside the bed. "Then the champagne bottle is smashed. Somehow. And she uses the glass to stab him."

"Sounds about right. Which means we know what happened, but not how they met or where she is now." Sarah said, annoyed.

"Great." Casey grumbled.

**XXX**

Sarah had never met Evelyn Shaw. She had never seen her picture before today and she definitely had never killed her. Despite Chuck's obvious worries, she didn't feel guilty for the choices of her other self. She wasn't that girl, and, quite honestly didn't know if she could have made the choices she had made. And in some cases hoped she wouldn't have. Unlike Chuck, any differences caused by her actions were changes. Just her own decisions.

That would be different now. She knew one possible outcome for the timeline and if she purposely changed something which altered that outcome, she would be responsible for those changes, whether good or bad. It made her head hurt, a bit, to consider and she couldn't help but feel a little impressed that Chuck had been able to not only to keep the two timeline separate in his mind, but also dealt with repercussions caused by the changes he had made to this timeline on his own for so long.

She did think it was interesting that even without Eve as her red test, Eve had died less than a week later. Sarah didn't particularly want to believe in fate, but the evidence so far certainly suggested that whatever was causing this timeline to drift closer or farther away from the one Chuck had left hadn't wanted Eve to live long after her mission in Paris.

When the door to their safe house opened, Sarah looked up to see her frustrated looking boyfriend. Without knowing who precisely Cleary had been working for, or how she and Shaw had met, they really had no place to even start looking for her. Chuck had eventually offered to contact the one contact he had that might have known Cleary. His mother.

"Anything?" Sarah asked.

"Whoever Cleary was working for, my contact's never heard of her. Cleary most likely didn't come into the picture until after Volkoff disappeared." Casey gave them a gruff look but didn't say anything. They hadn't explained who Chuck was calling, only that they might have answers. While Casey might be their partner, he also was very loyal to Beckman. They didn't want to have to put him a position where he might have to choose between the two.

"How about you?" Chuck asked. Sarah let out a sigh.

"We didn't find any footage of Cleary at any of the local airports, so we've been going through video from the various train stations along the routes that run through the local station. There were a few partial matches, but nothing we can be positive were her. Beckman and Graham will probably still have teams to look into the more recent ones. "

"Where were the partial matches?" Looking back over the most recent data she had received, Sarah began listing the various locations, only for Chuck to stop her when she reached Melun. Curious, she watched as Chuck rushed over towards his computer. After a flurry of typing, he brought the laptop to them, showing them one page of Eve Shaw's electronic file.

"Evelyn Shaw had a safe house near Melun she used when she was undercover with the Ring. Daniel Shaw visited her there."

"Chuck, that's a bit of a stretch. Not only was that picture from two days ago, but even if Shaw did share the house's location with Cleary, why would she choose the house of her exes ex to stay at of all places?"

"Because anyone who thought of it would ask that question." Beside her Casey gave a grunt that she suspected meant "touché".

"We don't exactly have a lot of other leads here." Chuck finally pointed out.

**May 13, 2008**

Melun wasn't very large. It was too small, in Sarah's opinion, to be a good site for a safe house. One thing it did have going for it in that regard, though, was that it connected with a number of different rail lines which ran both into and away from Paris. Despite the amount of traffic it received because of these lines, they had only been asking around a relatively short amount of time when they found someone who remembered an unusually attractive brunette who arrived in town a few days ago.

If it wasn't for the fact that Sarah knew where most of Chuck's previous hunches came from, she might have simply attributed his latest success to whatever skill or intuition had led to the many others that had baffled his superiors and colleagues alike during his career. Now she knew that this was a singular moment of good luck. Luckily Chuck knew enough not to be smug, as they plotted out their approach to the safe house.

They decided to spread out, with Casey as lookout and backup, much to his chagrin, while she and Chuck took point inside. After entering the house, Chuck began to search downstairs, while she headed up. A few feet down the upstairs hallway, she paused. She just barely heard movement behind one of the doors. Carefully turning the knob, she pushed open the door slowly.

As soon as she had entered, the door slammed shut, and Sarah turned around to find herself facing Cleary as she kicked Sarah's gun out of her hand. She had expected Cleary to fight her in the same style as she had Ilsa at the airport. She didn't. It took a moment for Sarah to readjust and fall into a rhythm of kicks, punches and blocks. She finally threw a kick at Cleary which sent her onto the ground. When Cleary looked up, she seemed to freeze momentarily. Cleary's odd expression threw Sarah slightly off guard for a second.

They were both brought back into the moment by the sound of Chuck's footstep coming down the hall. Just as her boyfriend kicked opened the door again, Cleary landed another vicious kick at Sarah, and she found herself on the floor. In the same movement Cleary threw something that looked like a coin at Chuck. Sarah pushed herself up, but before she could move towards Cleary, she found another one of the coins hurdled in her direction. It landed just shy of her, but as she stepped over it a high pitched weal filled her ears and her stomach rolled. The last thing that registered before she slipped into unconsciousness was that Chuck had already collapsed onto the floor behind Cleary.

**XXX**

Chuck woke up on a bed in what he assumed to be a CIA safe house. Most likely in Paris. Casey, at least, didn't seem to be acting as if they were in danger.

"Sarah?" He asked.

"She's fine. She's in the next room. I've been going back and forth between the two of you." Casey told him, before quickly added. "Just to make sure you don't swallow your tongue or anything. Wouldn't want to deal with the paperwork." Chuck managed a small smile at his partner's attempt to hide his concern.

"What happened?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." Casey said. He handed Chuck a baggy within which was two silver objects about the same size and shape of a quarter, but thicker.

"They aren't in The Intersect." He said shaking his head. "I've never seen them before." He told Casey, truthfully. He was beginning to feel a knot of anxiety twisting in his gut. Casey gave a disappointed grunt.

"Whatever they are, they knocked you and Walker out for almost five hours for no apparent reason. The CIA doctor that looked you two over didn't find anything in your blood work or any other side effects, which is something. At least we do know she only had two of them. When I showed up, she high tailed it out the window."

"So Cleary's long gone." Casey gave a affirmative grunt.

"Beckman and Graham want us to head back to Burbank. Cleary is obviously more connected than they realized. They want us to regroup."

"In other words they don't know where she is either." Casey gave what, on him, passed as a slight smirk.

"Pretty much." Chuck swung his legs over the bed, and pushed himself up. He braced himself on the wall as he rode out the bit of residual dizziness before turning to face Casey.

"You said Sarah's in the other room." Casey nodded. "The next door over."

Chuck made his way out of his room. Sarah was just blinking awake herself when he opened the door. He sat down on the bed, pushing her hair away from her face before giving her a slight smile.

"I guess we have Casey to thank for not being dead?" She asked.

"Yeah." He really didn't want to consider what Cleary might have done to them if Casey hadn't arrived when he did. Instead, he pulled back the covers and slide in next to Sarah, wrapping his arm around her.

"She got away." Sarah said. It was a statement, not a question, but he still nodded in answer. "What were those things." She asked.

"I don't know. I haven't seen them in either timeline."

"You haven't seen them or you don't think they were created by either timeline." Chuck tilted his head slightly, looking down at Sarah. He had been thinking something similar, but he had hoped it was simply because he was a nerd and had a tendency to jump to the science fiction conclusion. The knot in his stomach tightened.

"I hope not. I really don't want to contemplate what would happen if someone like Cleary's employer got access to that kind of technology." Instead of answering, Sarah simply pressed herself tighter against him.

Actually, he almost hoped that the strange devices were by-products of a random bleed-over. He wasn't sure he wanted to contemplate whoever had taken over Volkoff industries having the ability to create such technology from scratch. The only thing worse, was if it wasn't just a random bleed-over. Despite his parent's research, if the new head of Volkoff had access to technology similar to Leeryder he wasn't sure they would be able to stop them. Both he and Sarah were still worn out by whatever Cleary had done to them.

Sarah lay her head on his chest, her breathing become more slow and regular as she drifted off. He tried to push away his thoughts of inter-dimensional weapons and focus on watching her as she fell asleep.

_AN2: I realized I should probably state that the weapon used on Chuck and Sarah isn't related to the Norseman. It was actually inspired by the BB gun used by the animated version of Ted Kord. I hoped a weapon which disabled an opponent with sound waves would be science fictiony enough that it would cause Chuck to be concerned, but not so out there that it didn't felt like it couldn't fit into the Chuck world at all. _


	2. Chuck versus The Background

_AN: Sorry again for the delay. I'm going to try to get back on top of things now. Thank you to everyone who has left a review, and to everyone who's favorited or alerted either me as an author or this story._

_Thing that might be good to know for this chapter: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls came out on May 22, 2008. Yes I think Chuck would have seen it the first time. But I certainly would take advantage of having the homage to 1950's Science Fiction on a movie screen again. _

_The last normally scheduled AP test in 2008 was on May 16. _

_According to "In 2004 [Zondra] was incarcerated in a Siberian prison camp. Upon her escape, in 2005, the grizzled prison guards were "deeply relieved.""_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or . I also do not own Indiana Jones, Star Wars or Firefly._

Chuck versus The Background

**December 2004**

Sarah had seen dead bodies before. She had seen her friends create those dead bodies before. But somehow, walking into that room, filled with so much blood and brains, spilled by one friend and spilling out of another had been different. She had never seen one of her friends look so close to death before. She had taken one look at Nate, bloody, broken, and covered in gore, and at the body Chuck had killed to save him, and she had barely been able to stop herself from throwing up. She had, eventually, been able to swallow the gorge down in order to help Chuck drag out Nate.

But she couldn't help but think, what type of Agent gets sick like that? As they pulled Nate up and began to move towards the door, a far worse thought crept in and took over her mind. Would she have been able to create that mess, if she had been the one that found Nate? Could she had pulled that trigger if she were in Chuck's place? And if she couldn't. If she couldn't it would be Nate's brains splattered across that wall along with his blood. And what if it was Chuck? If Chuck was the one with the gun pointed to his head. What if she couldn't do it? What if she hesitated? She'd have killed Chuck just as surely as the man that pulled the trigger. She couldn't speak to Chuck as they made their way to the car, or the rendezvous sight. She could barely look at him.

When she made it back to Washington, Graham had seemed to sense what was going on. Maybe he had his doubts about her too, but didn't want to give up just yet on a recruit he'd already invested so much in. When he asked if she would be willing to be reassigned to the Secret Service for the rest of the year, she had agreed. She needed some time to think. Some time where doing so wouldn't be putting Chuck in danger. Secret Service might carry guns, but during election years they were more likely to take a bullet than shoot one. At least that's what she rationalized.

She hadn't talked to Chuck or Nate since she got on that plane back to Washington. Which was why she was slightly shocked when Nate called her.

"Nate. What's going on?" She asked, trying to hide her shock.

"I transferred to Opt Tech, after the, well after I got out of the hospital." He started.

"I know." She couldn't help but be a bit saddened when she heard. She wasn't the only one that had begun to doubt themselves that day, apparently.

"I'm working out of Langley now. I heard something. I'd been hearing rumors, but yesterday I heard something more definitive. I thought you needed to know." Her first thought was that something happened to Chuck. Oh God, please don't let anything have happened to Chuck.

"It's Zondra." He told her. She hated herself a little for feeling so relieved. "She was captured. The rumor is that Graham doesn't want to risk sending a team after her."

"Thank you." She told him. The wheels in her mind were already beginning to turn. "And Nate, if anyone asks, this conversation never happened." She added.

"What conversation?"

**XXX**

"No Sarah." She stared at Graham across the desk, her fist clenching at his words. "Zondra is in a Russian prison camp. I'm not risking an international incident by sending a team after one Agent. I'm sorry." He looked up, then, pausing. Studying her, before speaking again.

"If I were to send an Agent to Siberia to free Zondra, the operation would have to be off the books. And it couldn't be just to get Zondra. The warden in the prison where Zondra is being housed, he was one of the reasons Zondra went undercover in the first place. If the risk were taken by an agent to go to that prison, it would have to be a red operation. The warden would need to be taken care of. And any guard who could recognize his killer as an American." He stared, measuring her again. "Would you be able to do that Sarah?"

Everything in her was in doubt. But if she told him that he wouldn't send her. He wouldn't send anybody. So she told him yes.

**XXX**

She spent the flight over going over equipment and plan over and over again, the butterflies in her stomach expanding to monstrous proportions. But when she got there, when she saw how the prisoners were treated. That he was enjoying it. When she realized that somewhere in the grimy labyrinth under his control was the woman who taught her how to play quarters, and held her hair back in the aftermath, she ended up having no trouble pulling the trigger. And she only hesitated a second with both of the guards that found her.

Making her way quietly down the corridors, she was glad for that moment of hesitation when she heard a sound behind her and turned.

"Took you long enough." A strained smile pulled at her lips. Zondra stood there apparently having used the distraction Sarah had caused to organize her own escape. She was thinner, dirtier and perhaps a little worn around the edges but relatively healthy and whole. Sarah's emotions already on edge, and she found her body propelling herself towards her friend, and giving her a one arm hug. Zondra, even as prickly as she generally was, accepted the embrace. She even relaxed into it, for a moment at least before she self-consciously pulled away. "How about we wait on the heartfelt reunion until after we finish the escape?" Sarah gave her a slightly embarrassed nod.

"Right."

**May 16, 2008**

"And then we fought our way out, hotwired a truck and drove to the pick-up location. It wasn't until we were back in Washington that everything really sunk in." Sarah said, turning towards her boyfriend, studying his reaction. They were lying on their bed in Echo Park, arms wrapped around each other's shoulders. He had sucked in his lips the way he did when he was thinking of something, but didn't quite know how to say it. "What?" She asked.

"It's just, I'm sort of relieved that I can trace why your Red Test was different to something I did, rather than some random change." He said, still thinking. "But I wonder what really happened with Eve. Why Graham didn't have someone else go after her?"

"Maybe he did. It's not as if the Agency hasn't used car crashes as a cover for deaths before." She pointed out.

"No. In the other timeline Graham used Eve's death as a way to focus on Shaw and mould him into a weapon against the Ring. Can you honestly say he wouldn't have done that here, if he could have?" As much as she wanted to defend her mentor, she knew the answer.

"No." She shook her head. They lay there, cuddled up a moment, before she ventured to ask the question that was on her mind. "Would it be hypocritical, after all the times I've said I'm not the other Sarah, if I asked what happened to Zondra in the other timeline?"

"That doesn't make you a hypocrite, Sarah. That makes you a friend." He told her with a slight smile. "I'm sorry, but I don't really know. You didn't know Nate and you were on the outs with Zondra by 2004, but She seemed healthy and happy, or at least as happy as Zondra can be, the one time I met her. I didn't really get a chance to talk to her much. I'm pretty sure she didn't think I was good enough for you, and I spent most of the time trying to prove her wrong and failing horribly." Sarah couldn't help let out a chuckle.

"Chuck, Carina and I are Zondra's best friends. No girl thinks her best friend's boyfriend deserves her. At least not any girl I've known."

"What? Really?" Chuck asked. He actually sounded surprised.

"Focus, Chuck. Please." She reminded him.

"Right. Anyway. I really only focused on the part of her file that involved you and her time with the CAT Squad. But there was one line that stuck out, about the guards being deeply relieved upon her escape from a Siberian prison camp." Sarah couldn't help but give off an amused snort.

"That's sounds like Zondra."

"I could try to flash on her. Get more details?" Chuck offered. As much as a part of her wanted to tell him yes, she realized where taking that step might lead.

"No." She told him, snuggling up closer to his chest. They lay there a moment, soaking each other in. Despite herself, she couldn't help but think of her other self. Her other choices. Finally she tilted her head up slightly, so she could look into Chuck's eyes. "Thank you, Chuck."

"For offering to flash. It's not exactly a big deal." He said.

"No. Chuck. Thank you, for making me better." He turned his head down, slightly looking at her a moment, incredulously.

"I don't think I can really take credit for that. You are pretty amazing all on your own." She couldn't help but smile. Pushing herself up, pulled Chuck into a kiss, slow and tender. When she pulled away, she threw her leg over his, so she was straddling him. He looked up at her.

"Sarah," he said, slightly surprised.

"Chuck, shut up." She told him, she reached down and pulled her shirt over her head. Then leaned down again to pull him into another deep kiss.

**May 21, 2008**

Morgan knew he shouldn't be this happy. Chuck was his buddy, and he deserved his dream job. But he couldn't help but be excited to be able to work with his best friend all day again. Big Mike had been excited too. So excited he had actually offered Chuck the position of Nerd Herd Supervisor, which had to soften the blow somewhat, right? Judging by the line that had developed over the last few days the Buymorians weren't the only ones that were happy Chuck was back. It seemed like the more than a few Burbank residents had held off on bringing in their electronics until Chuck was back at the counter.

"What is his secret?" Morgan turned and looked towards Lester, who had snuck up behind him.

"I've narrowed it down: either mind controlling LSD or sorcery." Jeff said.

"What are you guys talking about?" Morgan asked, even more confused by the odder Herders than normal.

"Please, look out there." Lester said, gesturing toward the growing line. "Do you really think that many hot and medium hot girls just happen to need help with their computer this week? That bevy of beauties is here for a different kind of service altogether."

"Wasn't the fro yo girl enough?" Jeff added. Morgan looked back towards the crowd around the desk. Morgan guessed there might have been more girls than usual in the group, but he didn't think it was quite the parade of girls Jeff and Lester were making it out to be. Then again, having any human females in their vicinity was probably a marked increase for Jeff and Lester.

"First of all, guys, Chuck would never even think about cheating on Sarah. Second, think about it this way: if all the customers are here for Chuck, that means you two don't have to work. I bet no one would even notice if you slacked off the rest of the day." Morgan pointed out to his compatriots. Lester, put his finger to his mouth, contemplating Morgan's observation.

"That, is a good point my friend." He said, before giving Morgan an unwelcoming, and slightly weak, slap on the shoulder. "Jeff, we're going on an install. Grab your drinking pants." He said, before turning and hurrying towards the back of the store.

"Finally, I get to try my new drinking daywear." Jeff said with slightly manic glee before following his friend. Staring after them, Morgan hoped no one would be near where those two ended up today. And that they didn't come back smelling like a dumpster again.

**XXX**

Chuck let out a sigh as he looked over the sea of customers in front of him. Monday morning had started with the usual thin trickle of customers heading towards the Nerd Herd desk. Gradually over the last two days since Chuck was back that had swollen to swamp the desk. Jeff and Lester had disappeared hours ago, leaving Chuck to deal with the flood of customers himself.

After filing in the tag for his latest customer's phone, he looked up at the next in line. He closed his eyes to cover the flash. He knew he should expect this. With not only Fulcrum gone, but the Demitrios' gone there was bound to be some mercenary or opportunist would try to fill the vacuum before the Ring moved in. Chuck just sometimes wished they would go to Large Mart for their electronic needs.

**XXX**

Ellie's hands hovered over the keyboard a moment, before reaching out and grabbing the letter. Again. Over the last few weeks she had handled it so much, it had already become worn.

Ellie couldn't think of any explanation that would justify her mother abandoning her family all those years ago. Her Mother's letter hadn't even tried to give one. It only said that she had regretted leaving every day since. Ellie almost threw the thing away when she read that. But the letter wasn't only her Mothers, it was her Father's too. Why he would ever take her mother back was another thing Ellie couldn't conceive of, but apparently he had. And there was an e-mail address at the bottom where they could be reached.

A part of Ellie wanted to ignore the letter and pretend it never existed. She hadn't told Chuck about it yet. She didn't want to get his hopes up, if their parents let them down again. If she ignored it, no one would know. But somehow she always ended up sitting in front of her computer, fingers resting just above the keys, with no clue what to type. She wanted to yell at them. She wanted to have them wrap her up in a hug like she was a little girl and tell her everything would always be alright. More than anything she wanted to know. What was so important that they had to leave? Why did they contact her now of all times?

She read the letter over again. Silly, really since she had memorized it weeks ago. Each time she hoped that the answer to her questions would somehow magically appear between the lines, but there was nothing. She leaned back and took a breath, allowing her eyes to wander around the room. Her gaze settled on the picture of her and Chuck on his graduation day from Stanford. She had felt so proud of him. And been so scared. He had already told her that he would be leaving for Washington in a couple of weeks and unlike when he had graduated High School she couldn't take comfort in the assumption that he would be back in four years. He had come back though, eventually. Unlike their parents. Until now. She took one last glance at the room full of memories her parents had missed. And started to type.

**XXX**

"… Chatter suggests the sale will occur at the party. The schematics of the compound indicate there is a safe in the study. The weapons will most likely be stored there. Agents Walker and Bartowski will enter as guests, and find and collect the weapons before the buyer can. Major Casey, you will enter as staff and act as back-up. Good Luck." Beckman told them before signing off abruptly. Casey headed off, presumably to clock out from the Buymore, leaving her and Chuck alone in the backroom of the Orange Orange.

"Why do mad scientists always throw parties before selling their latest invention?" Chuck wondered aloud.

"Because that's the only time they'd get anyone to come?" She suggested. Chuck raised his eye brows then tilted his head slightly in agreement. He turned to her then with a smile.

"I've already signed out on an onsite install. Would you want to carpool back to the apartment to get ready for tonight."

"Of course." She said, slipping her hand into his. "I just have a couple of things to take care of on the way." The first thing was fairly easy. She stopped at the counter as they were leaving. "Do you think you could close tonight?"

"Sure. Now that the AP tests are over, most of my teachers aren't sure what to do with us. I have less homework right now than a third grader."

"Thanks." Sarah told her sincerely, before heading out. She had had her doubts about having Casey's daughter working with her at the Orange Orange. Mostly due to safety concerns, but, to a lesser extent, because she had feared a personality clash. While she had gotten along with Casey better than most CIA agents did during their previous encounters, she knew his reputation and she had worried that his daughter might take after him in some regards. While she could definitely see some of Casey in Alex, she had also proved to be remarkably mature and easy to get along with.

"Good luck." She heard Alex call after them as they walked out the door.

At the car, she let go of Chuck's hand, and circled around towards her side. Chuck chatted about some archaeology movie he wanted to see that weekend.

"I thought we were going to the apartment?" He said suddenly when she turned.

"I have to pick up my dress for tonight Chuck." He looked oddly confused. "You didn't think that all those gowns just magically appeared before a mission did you?" She joked.

"No. I mean, of course not. There was a wardrobe in Castle in the other timeline. I guess I hadn't really thought about it."

She turned into the parking lot and maneuvered through it until she found a parking spot relatively near the dry cleaners that acted as a front for the CIA's L.A. clothing warehouse. She pulled Chuck along behind her as she walked towards the store front. The semi-retired agent that ran the operation gave her a genuine smile when she walked in. She suspected most his Agency customers were only passing through or in need of a quick change while they were in town. He obviously liked having a customer he actually knew.

"Miss Walker. Here for a pick-up I assume?"

"Yes. I dropped off a cocktail dress a few days ago."

"I believe I remember the item. What color was it again?" It was a familiar script. Even though there was currently no civilian customers in the store, there was no sense in tempting fate. Sara slid her eyes over towards her boyfriends momentarily.

"Red." She said, with a small smirk.

"Of course. Let me just get it out of the back." As soon as he had left, Chuck leaned in and whispered in her ear.

"I'm confused. Is this an actual Dry Cleaners?"

"Is the Orange Orange a Yogurt Shop?"

"Oh." He said in understanding. At that moment the proprietor came back carrying a red dress on a hanger.

"You're already paid up. I just need you to sign here." He said, handing her the digital pad. After a quick signature, he handed her dress. "Now, is Mr. Bartowski here for a pick up as well?" Chuck's eyes bugged out.

"No. I'm fairly sure we've picked up all his suits already. Haven't we honey?" She said, turning towards him.

"Yes. All clean." He said. She bit her cheek to stop herself smiling at his obvious surprise.

"Well then, have a good night."

"You too." Sarah told him with a waive, before grabbing Chuck's hand and pulling him back towards the car. She couldn't help but find it amusing that the most mundane portion of their evening had Chuck so flummoxed.

**XXX**

"You get the weapon. I'll go help Casey." Sara told him quickly. He gave a nod, and hurried down the hallway leading to the study. Everything had been going well. They had gotten into the party without any problems. There had even been some good appetizers. They had begun making their way upstairs to the study. Then one of the weapon's potential buyers had realized that there were several other potential buyers at the party. And the gun play had started.

Chuck made his way into the room. He found the safe, in quite possibly the most clichéd spot possible, behind one of the prints and quickly flashed to get the combination. Opening the door he breathed a sigh of relief when the weapon was still safely tucked inside. He pulled it out, placing it on the floor so he could close the safe and replace the painting. Just as he reached back towards the boxy device, however, he heard the click of a gun cocking behind him.

"Please take your hands off my property and turn around." The gun's holder told him. Chuck slowly stood up and turned to find the device's creator was the one holding him at gun point. The CIA files on Edmund Noble indicated that he was a freelance weapons designer that had been selling his services to the highest bidder. The CIA had been closing in on him, until a year ago when he had fallen off the grid. The rumor was that he had had a breakdown after undergoing some kind of experimental procedure. While there had been chatter that some sort of weapons deal would be happening tonight, Chuck's flash on the man's assistant at the Buymore was the first time the Agency had realized he was the one selling the weapon in question.

Chuck straightened up and looked down, straight into the man's eyes, the scientist seemed to freeze. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he tilted his head slightly.

"Captain Carmichael?" Chuck froze. It was only momentary, quickly shaken off by the sudden sound of a silenced gun shot. Noble fell forwards, dead. One of the designer's former potential buyers emerged from the door way, walking into the room. The shooter glanced at the now dead scientist, then the open safe, and finally at Chuck and the device still sitting on the floor. He readjusted his aim towards Chuck and moved forwards. Chuck looked around, trying to calculate if he could reach the man before he shot, or if he would have to dive out the way and drag the device with him. It proved unnecessary.

The former Buyer stopped suddenly at the sound of heels running down the hallway. He turned slightly as they neared, only to be abruptly pistol whipped. The man fell down into an unconscious heap beside his victim, revealing Sarah.

"Is someone behind you?" Chuck couldn't help but ask. Sarah glanced back then turned to him slightly confused.

"No, why?"

"No reason." He said with a head shake. Then He grabbed the device and hurried towards her. "Let's get out of here."

**XXX**

"He called me Captain Carmichael."

"What?" Sarah turned, looking towards her boyfriend. They were laying in their bed, semi-entwined with each other. As the CIA scientist had yet to make head or tails out of the smorgasbord of parts that had formed Noble's weapon, the debriefing had been thankfully brief and they'd made it home in time to actually get a good night's sleep for once, among other things.

"Noble. He called me Captain Carmichael before he was shot. I've only been using the name Carmichael since I've been back in Burbank, and the only Captain I've ever pretended to be is Han Solo." She looked up at him, slightly confused. "My Halloween costume." He explained.

"Oh, Captain Tight Pants." She remembered. Chuck gave her a weird look, then opened his mouth as if to say something before closing it abruptly and shaking his head.

"Yeah. Him. But the point is, I've never been Captain Carmichael. And I've never seen the man before in my life. In either life."

"You did use your Carmichael alias last night. Maybe he heard you talking or had heard of Agent Carmichael and got confused?" Sarah suggested.

"Maybe." Chuck finally conceded. "But he seemed to recognize me."

"I don't know what to say Chuck. I don't understand how that could be unless he had run across him before. You have been part of the CIA for over eight years. Even you couldn't remember every criminal you've come into contact with during that time." She pointed out. "Plus, you nicknamed him a mad scientist for a reason. He might simply have gotten things mixed up in his head." Chuck let out a long breath.

"You're right. I suppose, I have to start being more careful when I use my Carmichael alias from now on." He said nestling a bit more beside her. Neither voiced another option.

If Chuck was becoming known as Carmichael, it wasn't an ideal situation. It would mean that their enemies could be closer to discovering Chuck's cover than was entirely comfortable. But at least it would be an explanation they could deal with.


	3. Chuck versus The June

_AN: I have come to realize that I am a) not creative enough and b) far too excited to get into the meat of the story I have planned, to be able to create a new adventure for Chuck and Sarah for each week of the Summer. I have therefore decided to simply combine these two fun little stories together to give a glimpse of what Sarah and Chuck's June was like, before moving on to July with more episode-like chapters (their July, not ours, I'm not planning on being that slow at putting up chapters.) Hopefully that isn't a disappointment. _

_Thank you, again, to everyone who has written a review. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck._

Chuck versus The Chicken Pepperoni

**June 11, 2008**

When Sarah came into the apartment she smelled, well, to be honest, she smelled something that was slightly burnt. Putting her things down, she saw that Chuck had set the table for two. Chuck walked out of the kitchen, carrying two plates of what she suspected had caused the smell.

"What's all this?" Sarah asked as Chuck slid the plates into their respective spots.

"Ellie had to pull an extra shift. She and Devon are going to be on call until tomorrow morning." He said with a mischievous smile. "I thought we'd take advantage of having the apartment to ourselves for a leisurely romantic evening." Chuck told her. He pulled out her chair and she couldn't help but smile as she sat down. While their often conflicting schedule and the apartment's floor plan meant that Ellie and Devon didn't really interfere with their more private plans, they rarely were able to get an entire evening where they knew they would be the only ones home.

"I made my famous Chicken Pepperoni." Chuck said as he sat down. He looked so proud that she cut up a piece and forced herself to put on a smile on as she swallowed. Looking up from her plate, her eyes locked with Chuck's. She put down her fork and launched herself at him, pulling herself to straddle his lap.

Reaching between them, she began pulling apart the buttons of Chuck's shirt, before helping him wrestle out of each of the arms. Pulling back slightly, Chuck peeled off his undershirt, before helping her do the same.

Despite his often disparaging remarks about his own lanky frame, what mass Chuck did have was mostly lean muscle, and pressed against him, skin to skin she could feel him flex and tense as he pulled her closer, then stood. There was a loud clatter and smash as he swept off the table and deposited her to sit on it. They both pulled back slightly then, glancing towards the small pile of dishware and breaded chicken now sitting on their floor.

"That was a lot louder, and messier than it seems in the movies." Chuck said, still looking at the heap. Sarah couldn't help but agree, she could practically see the stains beginning to sink into their rug.

"It did seem a lot sexier when it wasn't our flooring it was wrecking." She conceded.

"You know what?" Chuck said, turning back towards her. "We can just clean it up later." She gave a nod and wrapped her hands around his neck pulling him back into a deep kiss. She shifted her weight back and forth slightly, scooting backwards onto the table so that Chuck could join her on it. Leaning backwards she pulled Chuck back with her. But she couldn't help but flinch as her head hit Ellie's center piece. Chuck pulled away again then, glancing first at the center piece, then at the goopy puddle sitting beside the table, before finally back at her.

"Bedroom?" He suggested.

"Definitely." She agreed. Chuck slid back to the floor, then scooped her up into his arms, carrying her to a place where they were less likely to damage themselves, or the carpet.

**June 12, 2008**

Chuck woke up to the sound of someone knocking.

"Oh no, it's Ellie. We haven't cleaned." Sarah moaned. Chuck blinking slightly more awake.

"No, it's from the Morgan door." He assured her. She let out a slight growl. A knock on the window either meant Morgan had some particularly juicy gossip to share, or that they had a mission. What Sarah would be more irritated by at this point, Chuck wasn't entirely sure, but he decided he should be the one to answer the knocking.

Wordlessly he slipped out of bed and pulled on his boxers and a t-shirt. At the window he took one more glance back to make sure Sarah was sufficiently covered within their bed, then pulled back the drapes. Even through the window he could hear Casey let out a slightly disgusted grunt that roughly translated to "Put your clothes on," before gesturing back towards his apartment. Chuck closed the blinds and Sarah let out a growl of her own before pulling herself out of bed to get dressed for a briefing.

**XXX**

Devon and Ellie stumbled into their apartment in the early morning following their all night shifts. As she walked back towards the bedrooms, Ellie stopped, sniffing slightly.

"Is that carpet cleaner?" She asked, semi-rhetorically. Walking over towards a slightly differently colored area of the rug by table, she reached down, and found a damp spot. Well, at least her brother had cleaned up after himself this time. Standing up, she walked around the table and stopped short when she saw a note was sitting on the counter. Her brow furled slightly as she read it.

"How did Chuck manage to break or chip two entire settings of dishes and glasses?" She asked aloud.

"Come on, babe." Devon said behind her. "Stained carpet, broken dishes from a meal for two. Seems to me that Chuck and Sarah had a romantic dinner last night, and skipped right to desert."

"Gross honey. That's my brother." She said, grimacing slightly. Letting out a sigh, she looked over the note again. "Let's just go to bed. We can deal with replacing everything when we wake up."

**XXX**

If Sarah had known why Beckman and Graham had told them to bring bathing suits, she might have chosen a more utilitarian model. She hadn't planned for the maiden voyage of her new gold bikini to be underneath a wetsuit. Although, given the way Chuck's eyes appeared to have glazed over, perhaps it wasn't a total waste after all. She pulled up the suit the rest of the way, before zipping it up. She couldn't help but smirk a bit in amusement, as the movement seemed to cause her boyfriend to be blinking his way out of a trance.

"Chuck, while it's against my better judgment to put clothes on you, you should probably zip that up now." She said, nodding slightly towards him. He blinked again.

"Oh, right." He said, before she decided to have a bit more fun and walked up to him.

"Here." She said, pulling his suit closed before slowly pulling the zipper up. She finally rested her hands on his neoprene covered chest. Behind them Casey cleared his throat, annoyed. Sarah gave Chuck another smirk before heading off to get the rest of her gear. She glanced back briefly and saw Chuck stare towards her a few more seconds before following.

**June 13, 2008**

"Bartowski, Walker, I'm not one to buck orders, but the next one of your CIA morons drops a box of intel overboard, they can spend hours poking around underwater looking for it themselves."

"You know what Casey, I concur." Chuck said as they all staggered into the courtyard. It was well after midnight and they were all exhausted and slightly damp, despite the time it had taken for the trip home. In addition to having a rather long and exhausting fight with Team Bartowski after they reached the surface, a group of enemy agent had also searched their luggage while they were underwater, believing for some reason they had already found the intel. When the group didn't find it, they had apparently decided to take their frustration out the same way several of the bullies at Chuck's in high school had favored and stolen Team Bartowski's underwear. All three had ended up having to wear their wet bathing suits underneath their clothes on the way home. At least he hoped that Casey had kept his bathing suit on, he didn't particularly want to think about it.

Casey gave a grunt goodbye and headed into his apartment. Glancing towards their own door, He and Sarah stared a moment before simultaneously coming to the conclusion that they didn't want to have to climb in the window and headed towards the front door. He was slightly punchy already and had to fight his instinct to grab for his tranq gun when he saw a light flickering over the living room.

"So, did you two have fun?" Ellie asked from the couch. Chuck glanced towards Sarah who gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

"Yes. Definitely." Sarah said, pulling on a smile.

"I texted you we were going to be late, you didn't have to wait up." Chuck added. Ellie gave a shrug then.

"The shifts I'm working at the hospital are wrecking havoc on my sleep schedule. If I try to go to bed now, I'd just be lying awake until my alarm sounded." She said, before turning back towards the screen.

"Well, goodnight I guess." Chuck said before heading back towards his room with Sarah.

"Oh, Chuck," Ellie called out as they passed the kitchen , her eyes still keeping on the screen "don't think this means I'm not going tease you mercilessly for the next decade or so about making me deal with the aftermath your sex-capades. It just doesn't seem as fun when you already look like something dredged from the river."

Team Bartowski versus The Graduation

**June 26, 2008**

Casey took a deep breath before knocking on the door. Kathleen opened it, still putting on one of her earrings.

"Come on in. I already dropped Alex off." Casey followed Kathleen back into the living, as she walked. "I just need to get my purse." She said, before hurrying up the stairs. Casey took a moment to look around. There were pictures of Alex and Kath, even a few of him, spread throughout the room. The timeline of their slightly fractured family, which he unwittingly missed the middle of.

"You ready to go?" He turned. Kath was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Ready."

**XXX**

"Ready?" Sarah asked. Chuck held up his tranq pistol, checking it over one last time before shoving it into its holster and turning towards Sarah.

"Ready." He told her. "Are you wearing your bullet proof, underthing?" He said, gesturing up and down her torso. He wasn't quite sure what to call the close fitted body armor, but he was fairly sure most of the names his subconscious had come up with wouldn't be appreciated.

"Yes." She told him, slightly annoyed, "Do you really think all this is needed? It's just a high school graduation."

"Casey has accumulated a lot of enemies over the years. Colonel Keller knew Casey's real name, which means at least one cell of the Ring may know who Alex really is. Not to mention Casey hasn't exactly been trying to hide his connection to Alex in the last few years. Anyone who can put it together that Alex is Casey's daughter will know he'll be here, unarmed and for once in his life not on high alert." Chuck told her before turning slightly in the van to check on the last minute equipment.

"Chuck, maybe we should tell Casey about Keller and Bennett." Sarah pointed out. Chuck had contemplated exactly what to tell Casey about his ex-mentors for quite a while. While the CIA and NSA may not have believed that Fulcrum was a threat, they had at least been aware of the Ring. He had already changed history slightly by alerting them to Bennett's change in alliance earlier. But the more he contemplated telling Casey, the more he realized that doing so would only frustrate his partner. Casey would become obsessed, and more importantly worried if he knew that Keller or Bennett had turned, and until either man could be located there would be nothing he could do about it.

Bennett had taken almost two decades to use his one piece of blackmail against Casey in the other timeline, and Bennett had waited years after his recruitment by the Ring to contact Casey. Chuck might have wanted to take precautions today but he didn't actually think either man would come after Casey before they had in the other timeline. Plus, even if he were to tell Casey, today would not be the day to do so.

"If we tell Casey, he'll worry that he's placing Alex and Kathleen in danger, and he won't go." Chuck pointed out. "Did you go to your High School graduation Sarah?" He asked, turning around slightly. He saw Sarah nod slightly.

"Graham thought I needed closure on my old life." Chuck gave her a nod back.

"I went because of Ellie. Do you remember what it was like, looking out at that sea of parents and not seeing yours?" Sarah turned around slightly, thinking a moment, before turning back with a resolute look on her face.

"Let's go."

**XXX**

Kathleen let out a frustrated sigh as she stared out from where they had been seated.

"We're so far away. How are we going to get a decent picture?"

"Not a problem." Casey said, before reaching into the bag he a brought with him. Casey may not have been to many graduations, but he guessed that with a class as large as Alex's not everyone would get a front row seat. He had placed a requisition to test a new long distance camera for the month, using Bartowski's name. He figured no one would think twice about the nerd wanting to play with a new gadget for a while. They might even welcome him working out a few of the bugs. Bartowski himself hadn't even seemed to care where the thing had come from, and, while Casey'd never admit it to the CIA agent, he may have needed to watch him mess around with it a little to understand how it worked. Searching the crowd, Casey finally focused the camera on his daughter sitting in the H section before motioning for Kathleen to look.

"That's amazing." She said, staring at the image before taking the camera herself. Even Casey could agree it was a good misuse of government resources.

**XXX**

Sarah walked along the upper level of the bleachers, scanning the crowd. Since they were the only non-Casey agents there, they had split up to cover the audience. The hope was that she and Chuck would simply be mistaken for a sibling or an aunt or uncle of a graduate.

"Anything going on?" Chuck asked over her earpiece.

"No, you?"

"Nothing but a couple of kids trying to play a prank." Sarah's eyes drifted back towards where Casey and Kathleen were sitting. She had already had to grow used to being disappointed by her father by the time she had left High School. Graduation to her had become just one last hurdle to jump over before leaving Jennifer Burton behind and becoming Sarah Walker. She had grabbed her diploma and kept walking. But she still understood Chuck's desire to make Alex's experience different. Better.

On stage the last speaker was beginning to wrap up their speech. After the applause, the person presiding over the events came to the podium and began calling names. If it wasn't for Chuck's repeated insistence that it was bad luck to do so, she might have taken the opportunity to tell him it looked like his precautions might not have been necessary after all.

**XXX**

He braced his arm, steadying his aim.

"Alexandra McHugh." Was announced. There was a series of clicks as his finger pushed down.

He followed as Alex crossed the stage, taking a progressive series of photographs until she finally reached the point just in front of the podium and was passed her diploma. Casey took one, perfectly focused shot of Alex smiling as she shook hands with some school official, then another as she happily stepped off the stage. Then he sat back and wondered why there seemed to be so many kids in Alex's class with last names starting after H.

**XXX**

Alex hadn't really considered her graduation a big deal. She was, after all, planning to have another, slightly more final one in another four years. But her parents had been excited about it, and so she decided to humor them. After the actual ceremony, as she stood and took pictures with her friends, she couldn't help but feel a little giddy despite herself.

After pictures she had told her friends she would see them later at grad night, then gone with her parents to lunch. They had chosen one of her favorite restaurants, and even honored her wishes to have the celebration be just the three of them. As the final dishes were cleared away she had started to feel a bit excited herself.

"So, I heard there was going to be a hypnotist and a rock-climbing wall tonight. It's actually beginning to sound sort of fun. Were you going to pick me up in the morning, or should I drive myself?" Across the table from her, her parents shared a look. Suddenly her daughter-sense began to tingle. "What is it?" She asked warily.

"A couple of the parents chaperoning tonight had to cancel." Warning bells began ringing in Alex's head as her mother spoke. "So, you're father and I volunteered."

"You two are going to be at grad night?" She said, warily.

"Yes." Her mom said.

"Together."

"We're going to be there at the same time if that's what you mean." Her mom said. She was starting to sound slightly irritated.

"When would that be?" She asked, hopefully.

"All night." Her father finally added abruptly. Suddenly a large chunk of Alex's burgeoning excitement began to drain off. She loved her parents, but the last day night she would be with all of her old friends and classmates wasn't exactly when she hoped they'd start bonding.


	4. C&S versus The Different Missions Part I

_AN: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story so far. As always constructive criticism is welcome. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck. Or James Bond._

Chuck and Sarah versus The Different Missions Part I

**July 6, 2008**

Sarah plucked up a sizzling shrimp and maneuvered her arms so she could plop it into her mouth without moving out of the snug place she was nestled in beside Chuck in the loveseat. Morgan was busy setting up the DVD for an Evening of Morgan extra special edition. Earlier today Chuck had begged her to agree to another Evening of Morgan to help cheer his buddy up. Anna was visiting her parents this week and thanks to missions over the last month Chuck hadn't been able to spend as much time with him as Morgan had hoped. Of course, since Morgan pretty much hoped to spend every waking non-Anna moment with Chuck, that wasn't exactly hard. Sarah wasn't entirely sure how Chuck convinced Ellie and Devon to join them, but she suspected it involved promises to do housework.

Morgan finally finished whatever he was doing with the TV and sat back down, allowing the movie to start. A black and white shot of a stark building popped onto the screen and to Sarah's surprise she felt Chuck stiffen beside her. She glanced over towards her boyfriend questioningly before leaning over to him and whispering in his ear.

"What is it?"

"You'll see." He whispered back quickly. Turning back she saw that the scene had changed slightly and now showed a man walking into an office presumably within the building she had already seen. As he walked around his desk, he froze, then looked back to find a man lounging in a chair beside his desk. Sarah continued to watch trying to figure out why Chuck had reacted to his friend's choice of movie. On screen the two characters continued to banter.

"…if the theatric are suppose to scare me, you have the wrong man Bond." Oh. That would be why. After a few more lines, Chuck's initial unease with the movie choice appeared to lessen. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"Two kills to be a top Agent? At least that explains some of the MI6 Agent's I've worked with." Sarah bit back a chuckle. Then a bathroom stall appeared on screen and Chuck stiffened again, only for a moment. Sarah decided to lean in and whisper in his ear then.

"I always like the look on their faces when I do that." She said, as the apparent bad guy found his gun was empty. Chuck seemed to relax more than, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her even closer.

"Me too." He said. Sarah relaxed into him. Watching a Bond movie for them might be like Ellie watching a doctor show that tried to make things as over the top as possible. But she was here, with Chuck and people she was quickly considering friends. It could be fun. Then she realized that from her new position she couldn't reach the sizzling shrimp.

**XXX**

Chuck winced slightly as Bond shocked his heart back into rhythm. From the couch he could hear his sister complain about how stupid he was for not going to the hospital when the poison was still in his system. Sarah leaned back to whisper to him.

"You know what's stupid? Just taking a drink like that. He should have gone to the bar and gotten it himself."

"It's not that stupid." Chuck said defensively. Sarah shifted slightly so that she was turned straight at him, staring incredulously.

"You've been poisoned with a Martini, haven't you?" She said quietly astonished. Chuck nervously cleared his throat. Before whispering back.

"Not in this timeline." Sarah raised her eyebrows. He glanced over to make sure no one else in the room had turned their attention towards them, before leaning in again. "It was my first solo mission." He defended.

"So that's why you were so vague about how you got poisoned." Sarah gave him a smirk. Luckily before she could tease him any further, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out he saw it was a text from Graham.

"Oh, looks like I have an after hour Nerd Herd call." He told the room in mock disappointment. Morgan looked slightly confused.

"I thought Jeff was the Nerd Herder on Call tonight."

"Would you allow Jeff to go into people's houses at night unchaperoned?" Chuck countered. Morgan gave a reluctant shake of his head. "Why don't you guys just keep this Evening with Morgan going without us?" Chuck said, before prying himself off of the love seat. He gave a meaningfully look towards Sarah.

"You know what honey? I have to get something from the store. Why don't I go with you and wait in the car." She said.

"See you later." Devon said, distractedly, as he continued to watch the movie. Chuck tried not to look at either Morgan's disappointed face, or Ellie irritated one as they headed out the door.

Graham and Beckman were already on the screen when they arrived. From the evidence around the apartment, Chuck guessed that the call for a briefing had interrupted one of Casey's History Channel and hot pocket nights. Graham and Beckman launched into the briefing abruptly after their initial greetings.

"Last night, a government research facility in Oregon had its main server hacked. Agent Bartowski and Major Casey, you will be going the lab to investigate the intrusion." Graham told them.

"And Agent Walker?" Chuck asked warily.

"Agent Walker will not be going on this mission." Beckman said.

"Why ma'am?" Sarah asked.

"Agent Miller has been investigating a smuggler that has a previous association with Volkoff Industries. She has requested an agent to act as the CIA liaison during the investigation." Graham stated.

"And I'm the only person you think can keep Carina under control." Sarah finished. Graham looked slightly uncomfortable.

"You and Agent Miller have made an effective team in the past." He replied. Chuck glanced over towards Sarah. He knew she was mostly torn. She wouldn't want to leave him during a mission. If he asked, she would ask to come with them. But she would worry. Sarah hadn't been called to assist on this mission in the other timeline. That meant that they didn't know the mission's outcome, or what changes it might cause. If Sarah didn't help Carina and she ended up seriously hurt, or worse, Sarah wouldn't forgive herself. So Chuck gave Sarah's hand a meaningful squeeze before turning back towards the screen.

"I'm sure that Casey and I can handle a computer server on our own, if Carina needs Sarah." He told Graham and Beckman. Glancing back towards Sarah, she gave him a slightly grateful smile.

"Good. Your planes will be leaving tomorrow morning. Agent Bartowski and Major Casey, the facility will be briefed for your arrival. Agent Walker, we will send you the file on Agent Miller's investigation so far. Good luck." Beckman told them before signing off. Now Chuck just had to make sure that he didn't end up hurt while Sarah was with Carina.

**July 7, 2008**

As she disembarked and walked through the Miami International Airport, Sarah was on high alert. Not for enemies. For Carina. Her friend wasn't exactly a morning person, but she did love surprises. Sarah wouldn't put it past Carina to wake up or stay up solely for the purpose of catching her off guard. And Sarah really didn't want to see how the Airport security would react to one of Carina's surprises.

She felt a measure of relief when she made it out of the terminal and into a cab without incident. Sarah made her way to the apartment the DEA had provided for Carina and easily found Carina's door. With a bit a smirk, she decided to give Carina a bit of her own medicine. Crouching down, she quietly picked the lock, then stood and slowly turned the knob before slipping inside. She promptly regretted it.

Carina's companion screamed and yelled something incomprehensible as he ran off, presumably to find some clothes. Carina, in contrast, lazily lay out on the nest of blankets on her floor, wearing only a smirk. Sarah grabbed one of the blankets not resting under Carina's all too bare derriere and tossed it at her.

"Clothes Carina." She said.

"Fine." Carina said, rolling her eyes. As she sauntered off, Sarah began searching the apartment. She really hoped she had her own bedroom, with thick walls, for the duration of this assignment.

**XXX**

Casey hated feeling useless, and there was no denying that was what he had been so far this mission. They had gotten to the facility early in the morning and after having been briefly briefed on what the facility had been able to determine itself, they had been escorted to the server room. Casey might have been better with computers than Walker, but even he could admit Bartowski was in a different league than him altogether. All of which meant that while Bartowski had been working for the last several hours, Casey had been more or less standing sentry in the room. If he didn't watch himself he was going to slip into dad mode soon and start asking Bartowski if he needed something to eat.

"Uh oh." Heard his partner exclaim suddenly. Casey turned abruptly to see Bartowski hunched over the computer.

"Uh, oh? What Uh, oh? Have you figured out who did this?"

"No. They were clever, and careful. They bounced their signal through about half the servers I know. But that's not the problem. The problem is that the intrusion that got us called here was big, and loud and meant to be a diversion for a much more subtle hack that seems to have been bounced off the other half of the servers. The good news is, I realize this and now we know what they were really looking for." He said cautiously.

"And," Casey said. He'd already been waiting on the kid, he really didn't need him to try to add suspense here.

"And I'm pretty sure the only part of the system they actually looked at for any length of time was information about the security system."

"They're going to break in."

"And now we need to figure out what they have at this facility that someone would go through all that trouble to steal."

**XXX**

Carina finally knocked on Sarah's door and let her know that she was dressed enough to brief Sarah on everything she left out of the case file. Walking into the living room Sarah was surprised to find Naked Screaming Boy, as Sarah had begun to call him in her head, still sitting there, now in clothes, and apparently ready to take part in the briefing as well. Grabbing Carina's arm, Sarah pulled her friend slightly out of earshot.

"Carina, I don't know if we should be discussing things in front of civilian." She said.

"Relax, Sarah." Carina said with a flippant gesture. "He's not a civilian. He's FBI." Sarah's eyes narrowed slightly as she thought back to the file she had read last night.

"I don't remember any mention of FBI involvement in this."

"He's not technically on the case. He's temporarily on medical leave." Sarah raised her eyebrows expectantly. "It's not because of me." Carina said, slightly indignantly before her voice suddenly became uncharacteristically soft. "He was in a car accident." her tone shifted once again as she continued, once again light and flippant. "Don't worry, all his bit and pieces are working again now. I've checked. " Carina then gave Sarah a smirk.

"Of course you have." Sarah said. As Carina's words sunk in, and Sarah's mouth twisted into an amused smile. Carina eyed her warily.

"What's going on in that head of yours Walker."

"You have a boyfriend." Said, in a slightly sing-song voice

"I don't have a boyfriend." Carina said, slightly aghast. "I have a colleague who just happens to be hot enough for multi-night stands."

"Multi-night stands?"

"Multiple one night stands. Not a boyfriend." Carina finished before marching back towards the table. Sarah couldn't help but smirk slightly as she followed her and sat down.

**XXX**

"I have no idea what someone would want to steal. We're doing government funded research. The majority of our findings will be available to the public when we're done anyway." The facilities lead scientist told them, slightly bewildered.

"What about the minority, Doctor Ward, what are those projects about?" Chuck coaxed.

"That's classified." Ward said automatically. Behind Chuck Casey let out a growl. Chuck reached his arm up, trying to put some resistance between Casey and Ward. "What I think my partner is trying to say, is that we were called here to help for a reason. Nothing here is going to be above our pay grade, if you understand me." When Ward still hesitated, Chuck decided to take another approach.

"Were the results from those projects on the server that was hacked into?" Chuck asked.

"Well, yes. What we have so far at least. That's our most secure server." Casey glared at Ward like he was an idiot.

"If all they wanted was that information, they would have looked at the research when they hacked into to the server." Chuck pointed out to Casey, before turning back towards Ward "Is there anything else here someone would want to steal? Anything that someone would have to physically come here and get?" Ward only shrugged.

"The equipment's valuable, but it's fairly standard. Other than that, the only thing we keep here is the sample library."

"Sample library?"

"We maintain a library of blood samples of various government agencies' employees in case a full DNA profile is needed for comparison purposes or identification." Michael said proudly. Chuck had to once again get bodily between Casey and Michael.

"Does that include the CIA or NSA?"

"Well, yes." Ward confirmed.

"You have an entire refrigerator of Agents' DNA?" Chuck asked, incredulously.

"Oh, no. We have several. We didn't want to lose all the samples because one refrigerator malfunctioned." Ward stated. Chuck briefly considered allowing Casey a chance to reach Ward. Instead, he turned slightly to talk to Casey.

"With those samples they could create a DNA database of government agents. We need to speak to Graham and Beckman."

"No, really, Agent Obvious." Casey retorted.

**XXX**

Naked FBI Guy, as it turns out, was Andrew Weaver. According to Carina, his father, the recently deceased Gregory Weaver had apparently made millions from inventing something Sarah had never heard of. That had become relevant as Brant liked to surround himself with wealthy men and pretty girls. Andrew and Carina had fit right in.

"George Brant hides his smuggling operations behind his legitimate business ventures. So far we haven't been able to actually connect Brant to the drugs or weapons. He doesn't keep his real books at the office, so we're assuming they're kept in the safe he had installed in his home study. Brant is hosting a party at his house tonight. Andrew has an invitation, and with you here, we have our three man team." She explained.

"And the plan?" Sarah asked. Carina gave a little shrug.

"Andrew will take care of the video surveillance, I'll keep an eye on Brant and distract him if necessary while you get into the study and get pictures of Brant's non-cooked books. We connect him to his illegal activities, and he gets arrested." She said, dismissively.

"And how do I get into the study?" Sarah said slightly skeptically. This was Carina.

"You'll figure out something."

"Since you're so sure that getting into the study will be a breeze, why aren't I distracting Brant while you go after the books?" Carina gave another smirk.

"Because you belong to an agency that's not quite as, funny, about warrants. And, because I don't think Chuck boy would appreciate you making the kind of distraction that's needed." Sarah automatically glanced towards Andrew, who was looking away, slightly sheepishly.

"Andrew thinks the secret agent thing is hot." Carina explained. The FBI agent turned almost as red as he had been when she walked in on them earlier.

**XXX**

Sarah kneeled down in front of the safe. If Chuck had been here he would have been able to do some fancy calculation in his head and figure out what the combination was. Sarah, on the other hand, was forced to listen to the turning tumblers over the party's blaring music and try to decipher when the changes in sound occurred. Holding her glass from the party up to the safe's door, she placed her hear up to the glass. It probably would have helped her concentrate if she closed her eyes, but she wasn't about to take the chance that someone might sneak up on her. Finally, she heard each of the desired clicks and opened the door of the safe. Inside she found only a date book.

Holding back her frustration, Sarah began methodically searching through the study for Brant's account books. She had gone through about three quarters of the room when she heard a commotion in the hall. That would be Carina. Thinking quickly, she opened up the date book and took pictures of the next three months of Brant's planner using the camera Carina had supplied for the Account books. She then quickly placed the book back in the safe and closed the door.

No sooner had she done so, that Andrew and Carina burst into the room.

"See, I told you there was a window in here." Carina said, moving around the desk toward the window.

"What happened?" Sarah asked.

"Someone got handsy." Andrew told her. Sarah looked towards him with a touch of annoyance.

"I don't know what they teach you at the Bureau, but jealousy doesn't have a place on my missions." Behind her Sarah heard the sound of Carina shooting a grappling gun. Andrew scoffed slightly.

"Tell that her." He said nodding towards Carina. "She's the one that punched the girl." Sarah turned slightly towards her friend in shock. Carina gave a dismissive shrug.

"Apparently I'm a hypocrite." She said, as she tested the line with a tug. "I like playing with other people's toys, but don't like them playing with mine." She jumped out the window, sliding down the line. Sarah looked towards Andrew, still slightly shocked. He gave her a shrug of his own, before sliding down himself. Sarah took one last look around the study before giving a frustrated growl and following down after them.


	5. C&S versus The Different Missions PartII

_AN: In case you were wondering about the slightly odd titles for the two parts of this "episode", the length of a chapter title allowed was really frustrating me. I always try to make my titles work on more than one level, and for this two part "episode" "Different Missions" was perfect because Sarah and Chuck were not only on different missions, but ended up having to do different missions than they were originally prepared for. Unfortunately "versus The Different Missions Part" takes up so many characters that I didn't even have enough space to write "Chuck" let alone "Chuck and Sarah". _

_I want to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I know I say that rather blasé-ly at the beginning of every chapter, but I really appreciated the comments and encouragement. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck. I also do not own Marvel's Iceman, DC's Ice, or The Incredibles' Frozone._

Chuck and Sarah versus The Different Missions Part II

**July 8, 2008**

It turned out that disposing of several refrigerators' worth of blood samples was more difficult than Chuck had anticipated. Despite the lab's presence, the only hazardous waste disposal available in the small town where the lab was situated wasn't equipped to handle disposing of all of the samples at once. He and Casey had decided to take the calculated risk of leaving the lab in the hands of the day security staff in order to get a few hours of sleep before returning to watch over the further transfer of samples that night.

The only place to stay in the town was a Bed and Breakfast, which, much to both Chuck and Casey's relief, had had two free rooms. Despite the innocuous seeming owner, Chuck had still felt compelled to do a sweep for bugs before he called Sarah to tell her about his day.

"The good news is that if a hazardous waste team can't take away all the samples at once, the thieves probably can't either. The bad news is that we're probably going to have to be stuck here for at least another few days until the samples can either be disposed of, or moved to a more secure location." He finished.

"I guess that means you won't be able to meet me in Miami to help me tease Carina about Andrew." Sarah said. Her tone was joking but Chuck thought he heard a bit of disappointment hidden underneath.

"Andrew?"

"Andrew is the not-boyfriend that Carina blew our cover over. She punched a girl when she got too fresh with him."

"To be fair, it's not exactly hard to get Carina to blow a cover." Chuck pointed out.

"True." Sarah said. Chuck could almost hear Sarah shrug over the phone. "But I don't think I've ever seen her do it over a guy."

"So, what did you find during your background check?" Chuck asked knowingly.

"His father made a ton of money on some tech thing you probably would be able to tell me all the specifications on." She said.

"Money doesn't really seem like one of the attributes of a man Carina tends to pay that much attention to." He mused.

"According to Carina, he has those too. He's also FBI. Or at least he was."

"What happened?"

"He was in a car accident about a year ago. Then, about the time he was scheduled to come back to the Bureau his father passed away."

They both were quiet a moment. Neither Stephen or Jack was going to win father of the year, but Chuck knew firsthand how much losing his father had still hurt, and while he might remind himself that both his parents were alive and relatively safe, that still didn't completely erase how it felt to watch his father die in his arms. Finally Sarah spoke.

"Can you receive faxes there? I have something I was hoping you could look at." She asked.

"Yeah, but not before," he began, leaning back and looking at his bedside clock "three minutes ago." He paused, suddenly realizing what time it must be back there. "I didn't wake you when I called?"

"It's alright. I was probably going to get up soon anyway. I was having trouble getting to sleep." While he might not want Sarah to be uncomfortable, he still couldn't help but smile slightly.

"You missed me."

"Of course I missed you. I just hadn't expected it would disrupt my sleep. It wasn't a problem before."

"Maybe we should get these pillows I saw in a magazine. Each partner wears a microphone around their chest that transmits the sound of their breathing and heartbeat to the other partner's pillow." Chuck said, trying in vain to keep from sounding like a little boy with a new toy.

"I think I really wouldn't be able to get to sleep than." Sarah countered.

"More creepy than cool?"

"Just a bit."

**XXX**

When Sarah finally woke up in the early afternoon, Chuck had already faxed back his interpretation of Brant's date book. When she headed to get something to eat, she was surprised to find Carina, alone, looking over a copy of the pictures at the breakfast table.

"Since you didn't get the account books, I was looking to see what was so special about this one." Carina explained without even looking up. Sarah rolled her eyes, and walked over to the kitchen to grab a piece of fruit before sitting down across from her.

"I didn't get the account books because someone compromised our cover." She said pointedly. Carina simply shrugged. "I looked that over last night. Brant has a meeting tonight." Sarah added.

"At docks." Carina said, looking up. At Sarah's surprised look, she gave a half smile.

"You're not the only one who knows how to break a code Walker."

"You asked Andrew." Sarah said knowingly.

"One of my contacts at the NSA, actually. Did Charlie figure out who the meeting was with?"

"Yes." Sarah conceded. "But it was someone local. They haven't been associated with Volkoff."

"Still, if we can catch him with contraband," Carina pointed out.

"We can arrest him and question him." Sarah finished. "I do know what I'm doing Carina."

"Just checking to make sure all that time in Burbank hasn't made you rusty."

**XXX**

The samples were not only divided among three different refrigerators, but placed in three different sections of the building to avoid losing all the samples should one section have a power outage. Which made Chuck wonder where all of this forethought had been when they had decided it was a good idea to store all these samples here in the first place. He and Casey each guarded one of the refrigerators, while one of the security guards had taken the third. On the plus side, the Hazardous Waste Disposal team had arrived on time. Which he supposed should have been a clue.

"I need you to sign here." The uniformed man told him. When Chuck dipped down to sign the form on behalf of the lab, he caught a glimpse of the man underneath his cap. Chuck hadn't realized that the original Intersect in this universe had had information on the Ring, which made the information that streamed in front of his eyes as he flashed even more surprising. He took a breath and finished his signature, giving the Ring agent a fake smile. Then the Ring agent began to pull the clip board back.

"Actually could I look that over a second?" Chuck asked. The Ring agent paused momentarily as if trying to figure out what to do now that Chuck had gone off script before allowing him to take the board. Chuck forced a flash, then he tilted the board onto its side and used it to whack the man in the head.

The Ring agent was more hard headed than Chuck had guessed, and began to shake off the hit. Before he could recover, Chuck punched him in the stomach. When he doubled over, Chuck raised his knee, while simultaneously pulling the man's head down to bash it into it. The Ring agent fell over unconscious and Chuck contacted Casey over his ear piece.

"Casey, the Member of the Disposal team sent to empty Lucius was a Ring agent. What's going on with Bobby and Tora. " He heard Casey grumble under his breath. To be honest, Chuck wasn't entirely sure it was about the Ring Agents, rather than the code names Chuck had chosen for their appliance charges.

"I'll take care of the refrigerator in sector two. You check in with the security guard in sector three." Casey told him. Chuck adjusted his earpiece to check in with the man covering Tora. There was no reply.

Chuck looked around the room for something sturdy. Finally he dragged the still unconscious Ring agent close enough to one of the bolted down tables to handcuff him too it, before heading towards section three of the building. He found the security guard dead outside the door to the lab. The refrigerator there hadn't been due to be emptied until tomorrow night. Chuck suspected the guard had realized what was happening sooner than Chuck had, and been killed to keep him from warning them.

Chuck moved forward carefully, pulling his tranq gun. Slowly he turned the knob to the lab's door, and eased it open. Looking in he found himself staring at Laura Cleary as she placed blood samples into a cooler-like backpack. Their eyes locked a moment, both frozen in surprise. Chuck raised his pistol, and Laura reached into her bag and threw something. Not wanting to be knocked unconscious again, Chuck slammed the door closed quickly, hoping that the thick fire-proofed material would muffle the weapons effect. When he opened the door again a moment later, Cleary was already running through the lab's back door.

Chuck took a step into the room to run after her, but froze as he saw something that looked more or less like a lighter pinwheeling through the air. Chuck may have slept through Organic Chemistry, but even he knew that half the things in the room were flammable. He was also willing to guess that Cleary wouldn't throw something like a lighter if she hadn't found a way to take advantage of that flammability. Chuck quickly turned, slamming the door behind him once again, then ran down the hallway. He heard the slightly muted sounds of an explosion as he turned the corner. When he turned his earpiece back to Casey's frequency, his partner was already yelling at him with a mixture of annoyance and veiled worry.

**XXX**

"Looks like we have drugs for me, weapons for Andrew and a former Volkoff associate for you Walker." Carina said as she passed Sarah the binoculars. From their perch on the upper level of the warehouse she could see as Brant opened up each of the containers stacked in the center of the room to inspect their contents.

"Christmas in July." Andrew quipped.

"So how do we want to approach this?" Andrew asked from where he sat on the other side of Carina.

"The guns in the boxes shouldn't be loaded, and we already saw the two groups get frisked on the way in, but its still going to be ten to three." Sarah said, weighing their options.

"Which by my calculation places the odds in our favor." Carina quickly cut in. She vaulted over the railing and jumped.

"I hate it when she does that." Andrew sighed, and then jumped himself. Sarah let out a deep, frustrated, sigh herself, then once again followed the pair.

When she landed, she immediately found herself having to block a punch from the closest of the seller's men. She twisted his arm back slightly and sent a high kick to his face, knocking him out. She heard the next smuggler as he came up from behind her. Twisting around quickly she sent a kick to his gut then brought her elbow down on the back of his head when he reflexively leaned over. A third man, this time one of Brant's, peeled off from the group around Andrew, pulling out a knife from an ankle holster. She twisted and ducked as he came at her with the sharp object, before being able to twist his arm and wrench it away. After the knife was sent clattering to the floor, she was in the perfect position to send her elbow into his nose. She then gave him one last punch to the face, which sent him sprawling onto the floor. Turning quickly she looked around to find that Andrew and Carina had already taken care of the rest of the group. Carina caught her eye and gave her a small self-satisfied smile.

**XXX**

They had been lucky. The fire-door had mostly contained the blaze and subsequent explosion. Even more so, the reason the third refrigerator had been scheduled to be emptied later was because it mostly contained samples from agents that were no longer in the field. This wasn't a win. One of the guards had been killed, and with the damage done to the lab, there was no way to know which samples had been taken, so the field operative's whose samples had been in sector three would all have to pulled, for an indefinite amount of time. Graham and Beckman had not been very happy. But it could have been a lot worse. As it was it looked like he and Casey would still be stuck here for at least another day supervising the actual moving of the samples. All of them had to accounted for now, just in case.

Settling down in one of the overstuffed chairs in his room Chuck decided to call Sarah to let her know what was happening. He was surprised when her phone went straight to voice mail. He glanced back at the clock again to check the time. He wondered what Carina had done this time.

**XXX**

"Mr. Brant, we have more than enough evidence to get you for drug and weapons smuggling. We're searching your house and office right now, which I'm betting you know will turn up evidence of other crimes. We also know that there is a war going on between former factions of Volkoff Industries. If you give us information we won't just be willing to recommend a better placement for you, we will be better able to protect you." Sarah explained to Brant. She sat quietly a moment, staring at the man across the table from her. They were sitting in a Florida CIA substation. So far, the most Brant had said was to deny his association with Volkoff or with any other illegal activities. She decided to go with a different tactic. "Mr. Brant I saw how Victor Federov was killed. It was ugly. Without information on the current situation with Volkoff industries, we simply won't know how to protect you, or from whom." Brant smirked.

"Agent Walker. You misunderstand. I'd be perfectly happily to supply information if it would better my own situation." Brant finally said. "The problem is simply that I ended my association with Volkoff Industries more than two years ago." Sarah studied Brant a moment more. Then she stood.

"Very well, Mr. Brant." She said, and turned to leave. As she reached the door, Brant seemed to realize that this might well be his only chance to negotiate.

"Boris Kaminsky." He shouted to her quickly. Sarah bit her cheek to hold back a smirk. She turned, walking back towards the table Brant sat at. Standing there, she crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at him, waiting. Brant's face took on a sour expression but he spoke.

"Boris Kaminsky is the reason I decided to go into business for myself. After Volkoff disappeared, he killed all of Volkoff's other lieutenants and took over a majority of Volkoff Industries. He's brutal, and not in the fun way Volkoff was." Sarah grit her teeth at Brant's description of Volkoff, but kept silent. "I wasn't going to stick around and wait for him to decide I was threat. So I left. Started over. Became a business man in my own right."

"We'll need more details on Kaminsky." She told him.

"I'd be more than willing to negotiate. But he's not the person you're looking for. If Kaminsky wanted Federov dead he would have simply put a bullet between his eyes. And he would have done it years ago." Brant finished. Sarah stared at the man a moment, trying to determine if he was telling the truth.

"Thank you Mr. Brant." She finally said, before turning again and leaving the room.

**July 9, 2008**

Sarah attempted to balance her grocery bags in one hand, as she closed the door to Carina's car. After she had left the substation, Chuck had finally gotten a hold of her and let her know that he wasn't going to be coming home until the next day. She had decided to stay with Carina, and maybe hit a club that night. Unfortunately they had pretty much exhausted all the food options at Carina's apartment already, so she had decided to go to the grocery store once she had woken up. After finally closing the door and rearranging her bags, she headed toward the building, only to stop when she found Andrew waiting outside. He looked upset.

"Is something wrong?" She asked.

"The Bureau finally decided to process my request to be taken off leave. I got the call this morning. Somehow I doubt after last night it's a coincidence." He said with a slightly ironic smile. "I'm supposed to leave for Washington as soon as possible." Sarah's eyes unconsciously drifted upward towards Carina's window.

"What did Carina say?"

"That it was fun. That we might hook up again the next time she's in Washington. If she felt like it." He said with a slightly sad smile.

"Sounds like Carina." Sarah noted. Andrew nodded.

"Then she told me to get out." He turned towards Sarah, his face shifting into a more serious expression. "I know Carina is supposed to be tough as nails but could you keep an eye on her tonight, just in case?"

"I'd do that anyway." She told him. He gave her another sad smile.

"I know." He sighed. She gave him a curious look. "You remind me of someone I knew at the Bureau. Before the accident." He offered in explanation. "Not in romantic way." He added quickly.

"Should I take that as a compliment?" She asked, slightly confused by his melancholy tone.

"Yes. In fact, if your team ever needs a bit of help from the FBI just let me know" He said before adding with a slight shrug "If I manage to get my badge back."

"Thank you. Good luck Agent Weaver."

"Goodbye Agent Walker. Good luck."

**July 10, 2008**

"This is idiotic Bartowski." Casey grumbled from the driver's seat.

"Ellie thinks that I went with Sarah to visit her friend in Miami. If we arrive home at different times, she's going to find it weird."

"For God sake Bartowski, I'd be willing to let you stay with me until Walker gets back if it meant I didn't have to do this. Do you have any idea how bad the traffic is to get into LAX, even just to drop someone off? The best part about using the CIA jet is that we don't have to deal with this craziness."

"Sarah had to deal with flying commercial to cement her cover in Miami. I'm sure you can tough it out." Chuck said. Casey let out another growl, but switched into the lane to exit at LAX. He continued to grumble until Chuck got out of the car, and, Chuck would guess, all the way back to the freeway.

Casey probably would have been even grumpier if he had found out the real reason Chuck had wanted to greet Sarah at the airport. It had less to do with maintaining their cover for Ellie and more to see the look on Sarah's face as she saw him. Granted, he couldn't meet her at the gate, but he still was able to find an area that she would be funneled into before heading out to her car.

Even after all this time, he couldn't help but stare a bit as he watched her walk. Despite how crowded the airport was Sarah always seemed to find the bubbles of space that allowed her to move forward without breaking her stride. Her eyes were automatically searching the crowd. Her eyes finally landed on him, and her mouth formed a giant grin as she shifted direction towards him.

He headed towards her, weaving through the thinning crowd. When they met, he lifted her up and spun her into a kiss. When he placed her down again she let out a confused chuckle.

"Chuck, we saw each other three days ago." She said, slightly incredulously. He started to open his mouth, planning to explain to her that he was trying to give them an airport moment, then closed it with the realization that she probably wouldn't have the faintest idea what he was talking about. Instead he grabbed her suitcase and wrapped his free arm around her shoulder before leaning over and kissing her again.

"I just really missed you." He told her. She let out another laugh and Chuck found himself grinning like the idiot Casey accused him of being as he walked out with her to the parking lot.


	6. The Nerd versus The Con Part I

_AN: I'm sorry for the long delay. This chapter was much harder to piece together and write than I had anticipated._

_Thank you everyone who has reviewed. _

_Here are some things that might be helpful to know: _

_During Anniversary Mary is seen reading to Chuck from a book called "The Frost Queen"_

_In a later episode Mary reads Sleeping Beauty to Clara and then recounts her own experience of being woken up when Steven kissed her with an antidote on his lips._

_Comic-Con took place in San Diego from July 24 to July 27 in 2008. I did not go, but I have been to previous Comic-Cons and I've based this off of those experiences._

_During a deleted scene Lester gave Big Mike a "suck up" gift for Christmas of a Kipper. _

_According to his spy-dossier on Mark Ratner was in the AV Club, Chess Team and Matheletes with "Jenny Burton." _

_During the flashback in Cougars Sarah is seen carrying a violin case and has a science club flyer taped in her locker._

_The hacker that Volkoff brought with him in Leftovers was called K.K. He was played by Andre Kincaid._

_During Beard a Klingon Bat'leth (and Mek'leth) are shown in the background along with some of the other weapons in Castle. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck. I also do not own SDCC, Marvel, Star Trek or Star Wars. _

The Nerd versus The Con Part I

**July 21, 2008**

Her Mother had always been good at making up stories. When they were little, she would tell her and Chuck long elaborate adventures. It was only when Ellie was older that she realized that other kids didn't know every word of the Frost Queen's heroic rescue of the magician, or discovered that the version most children heard of sleeping beauty involved a princess and no potions.

During a moment of nostalgia when Ellie was in college, she had tried to find out more about her mother's old storybook. She had discovered that it had been printed by some boutique publishing company that Ellie couldn't find any real information on.

Given this history, Ellie supposed it was somewhat apropos that she and her mother began communicating through stories. One tale of her and Chuck in the years since her Mother's disappearance traded for one about her parents, either old or new. She knew her mother had purposely made some of the details vague, and occasionally she wondered if somewhere along the line her father's paranoia had spread to her mother, but bit by bit she felt like she was growing to know her parents. But it was only to a point. She still hadn't gotten the story of why her Mother had left. On some level she was relieved. As long as she didn't know, a small little girl part of her could imagine that there might be a good explanation; even through the adult version knew that nothing could justify what her mother had done.

And then, today, when she went onto her e-mail account she had found that the Mail Delivery System had returned her latest e-mail to her mother. Her retelling of Chuck's attempts to comfort Morgan after he had been fired from Underpants Etc. during his first summer back from Stanford sat in her mail box along with the message "I'm sorry to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients." She should have been prepared. She wasn't. Her first thought was a panicked feeling that something had happened to her parents. Then a moment later she had become more realistic. They had just gone off on one their adventures. And she had been abandoned by them, again.

**July 25, 2008**

Chuck concentrated on the road, trying to push all of his other concerns to the background. Things were messy right now. What Sarah had found out from Brant suggested that some completely new player was trying to make a grab for Volkoff's collapsed empire. Finding out that Cleary, a former employee of both Volkoff Industries and this new player, was now working with the Ring was also something to worry about. Especially as Cleary was proving no easier to locate now than when she had disappeared from Merlun.

Not that Chuck had had much time to participate in the search. Even he hadn't been able to pass off his latest "vacation" as an extended install. The night before leaving for Oregon Chuck had called nearly every Nerd Herder to swap his various shifts. Several had seemed to sense his desperation and pushed to have the deal sweetened. He had drawn the line at shaving Jeff's back, but had spent most of the last week and a half since his return working from Opening to Closing at the Buymore, and had ended up covering more shifts for the Nerd Herders he had negotiated with than he had even had during the three days he was gone. He refused to allow any of that to ruin this weekend.

"Chuck, you're going the wrong way." Sarah told him from the passenger seat.

"No, I'm not." He said, keeping his eye out for their exit.

"Trust me. I know San Diego. The convention center is that way."

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. There's not going to be any parking down town today. We're going to park over by the hotel, and take the trolley into downtown. Nate's going to meet us at by the trolley station." Chuck explained as he turned off the freeway. Sarah rolled her eyes.

Morgan and Anna had arrived yesterday, and they would meet them at the convention center. As far as Chuck was concerned he had already been working enough extra shifts to cover his time in Oregon. So while his buddy and Anna had juggled favors and holiday shifts around in order to spend yesterday in San Diego, he had worked out a deal with Big Mike to get three days off. It meant, however, that somewhere between San Diego and Los Angeles he was going to have to find a place that sold Kipper. And a smell tight container to put it in.

Looking up towards the other end of the center, he saw a familiar figure walking towards them. Chuck was relieved to see that his friend looked better than he had the last time he'd seen him. Although, to be fair, that wasn't exactly hard. Chuck exited the car and waved towards Nate, as he approached the car. As Nate grew closer Chuck got a better look at what he was wearing.

"Why are you dressed as Captain America?" Chuck asked, slightly confused.

"It's Comic-Con." Nate told him matter-of-factly.

"It's Star Wars day." Chuck told him, gesturing down to his own costume. Nate grinned back at him, shaking his head.

"This isn't just any costume." Chuck looked at him questioning. "Manoosh made this up for me. Since he can't go himself this year." Nate pulled the shield off his back, laying it flat on his hand "Some metal alloy that I'm fairly sure isn't supposed to be out of the lab, around a Kevlar core. Light, bullet proof and perfectly balanced. It's about as close to Steve Roger's shield as modern science can make."

"Are you expecting to get shot at?" Chuck asked sarcastically.

"I'm going to be standing next to you two." He pointed out with a slight smirk.

"Funny."

Nate's eyes narrowed slightly and he tilted his head. Turning, Chuck followed his gaze towards his own car. The small vehicle was swaying slightly as Sarah tried to pull her costume on without giving everyone in the parking lot a peek show. She had refused to wear the old Halloween costume on the actual drive down. Partly because it was uncomfortable and partly because she was worried it would distract him.

"She knows she could change in my hotel room, right?" Nate said, slightly confused.

"I think it's some sort of point of pride that she can change anywhere." He said, before reaching over and covering his friend's eyes. Nate batted his hand away, and glared at him.

"I wasn't looking." He said, irritatedly.

"I'm ready." Sarah said, as she popped out of the back seat. Despite having seen Sarah in a metal bikini before Chuck couldn't help but freeze a moment and look at her. Maybe she had been right about the distraction.

**XXX**

Sarah had initially been reluctant to come with Chuck to Comic-Con. She knew she would be completely out of her element. While she had been a bit of a nerd in High School, unlike Chuck, her interests had more or less stayed with the academic. She had been in The AV, Science Clubs. She had played with the Orchestra and competed with the Chess team and Matheletes. But she had never been interested in movies, video games or comic books. When she had joined the Agency, she hadn't really had time for anything else. All of the energy she had previously used on school and clubs had been focused on the spy world. Whether it be working to become the best fighter and linguist possible or memorizing all trivia about her idols and their missions. She neither had any idea what the vast majority of these booths were selling, nor did she understand why all of these people were so interested in it.

It also felt completely counterintuitive to her to choose to walk into a crowded building filled with strangers wearing masks unless you were being pursued. But Nate had decided to come, so Chuck pretty much had to go. And being sardined into a building filled with potential assassins sounded infinitely less scary than being alone with Ellie while she tried to decide whether or not she would delay a year until after the wedding to apply for fellowships.

Sarah kept her fingered entwined with Chuck's as they threaded their way through the crush of people surrounding the various booths. Anna and Morgan had gone to something called a panel almost as soon as she and Chuck had arrived, leaving them alone with Nate to look around. She thought it should be overwhelming for someone who had been trained to constantly be aware of their surroundings but Chuck and Nate seemed perfectly comfortable. Giddy even. It was a relief to see Nate actually smiling. He had been through a lot in the last year. Not just losing Amanda, but also Bryce and, for a time, Chuck.

And, Chuck was adorable. He was so cute when he got excited. He looked like a kid in a candy store and despite the fact she had no idea what he and Nate were chattering about half the time she was starting to have fun. And, she didn't really need to know exactly who he was dressed as to see at least some of its appeal.

So, she was disappointed when Chuck froze while they were making their way through one of the rows, and he closed his eyes in the way he generally did to hide a flash. Before she had a chance to ask him what was wrong, he took off. His body stance shifted abruptly, from relaxed and slightly awkward convention visitor, to agent, slicing through the crowd with an aptitude created by training and facilitated by his lankier physique and a more than passing familiarity with the "terrain."

Sarah followed with Nate surprisingly close at her heels. Unfortunately the person Chuck was pursuing appeared to have an even better grasp of the convention center's layout than Chuck did and they found themselves on a sort of low speed chase, winding through the crowd. They ended up running up an escalator to the top floor, only see their pursuee give them a little salute and jump down off the railing onto the floor below. Running over Sarah watched as he came out of a roll. He was moving slowly, but still moving and Sarah briefly wondered if the Intersect could allow Chuck to do a jump like that. She then quickly withdrew her curiosity when Chuck's mouth pulled into the half smile that generally meant he was about to kick someone's butt. Or do something incredibly stupid.

Chuck grabbed Nate's shield as soon as he came huffing and puffing up to them less than a second later. Chuck closed his eyes so quickly it was little more than a blink, seemingly in order to summon up a flash, although of what Sarah had no idea what kind of flash it could be. Then he opened his eyes, leaned over the edge enough to see the man, and threw the disk overhand like it was a giant Frisbee. It ricocheted several times, prompting several shocked screams from below before she finally heard a slightly muffled thump and a yelp of actual pain she really hoped was the person Chuck had flashed on. Nate's eyes boggled at Chuck as her boyfriend gave them a slightly self-conscious smirk, if that was possible, before Chuck took off again down to the main escalator.

**XXX**

When Morgan came out of the panel, everyone seemed to be talking about some sort of presentation a group of actors had put on. Who they worked for and what the presentation was supposed to be about had already become a bit fuzzy after filtering through the various retellings by convention goers, but the general consensus was that someone that thrown a replica of Captain America's shield like they knew what they were doing, and it had been incredibly cool. One person had said that the shield had actually hit someone, who had been arrested and suggested that the person who threw it was some short of law enforcement. But most people seemed to agree that the throw had to have been planned, and more than a few thought it had been faked with wires. Still, Morgan was kind of disappointed he had missed it. Chuck had been right, that panel was definitely not worth his time, especially if it meant he missed something like that.

Pulling out his phone, Morgan realized he should call Chuck to find out where they should meet. It took almost four rings before his friend picked up.

"Chuck, we just got out, where do you want to meet us?"

"Hey, Morgan. We actually had to leave." Chuck paused a moment then added apologetically. "Yogurt emergency."

"What kind of yogurt emergency was important enough to leave Comic-Con?" Morgan said, slightly aghast. He liked Sarah well enough but she obviously didn't understand the sanctity of Comic-Con.

"One of the machines exploded." Chuck said quickly. Morgan suddenly imagined a sea of goop spread across the walls of the Orange Orange and gave an involuntary shudder. Such a waste.

"Apparently. Sorry buddy."

"Ask him about a restaurant." Anna whispered to him. Morgan gestured to her to give him a minute.

"Hey, Chuck, Anna and I were hoping Sarah could recommend a restaurant. You know, since she grew up around here? Anna doesn't really want to go back to our old standard." He said.

"Even you got sick the last time we ate there." Anna whispered pointedly next to him.

"Sarah just went to high school in San Diego, actually." Chuck corrected quickly. The noise from his side of the phone seemed to get muffled for a minute, as if his friend had covered the phone with his hand. Morgan thought he could hear a few murmurs before his friend spoke again. "Sarah says to try the Old Spaghetti factory." There was another pause "Sorry, that's closed. Now's really not a good time, buddy. I'm sure you guys will find someplace." Chuck said quickly before hanging up.

**XXX**

Chuck had never run into John Escher in the other timeline. He didn't need to have any knowledge of him, however, to realize he was most likely at the convention center for a hit. Chuck's flash had revealed he was a assassin, and nothing in Escher 's file suggested he would be in San Diego because of his love of comics. After he had come out of the flash, Chuck had quickly begun maneuvering around the crowd, trying to keep Escher in sight, he had formed a plan. Stop Escher. Find out his target. Stop any future assassins. It wasn't exactly a masterpiece of planning, but since he had been trying to avoid a gaggle of hobbits while he made it, he thought it wasn't that bad.

He probably shouldn't have thrown the shield. Sarah had ended up having to flash her badge to get them out of the convention center, and she had lectured him on showing off in front of civilians while they had waited for Casey to get transportation for them. Nate's eyes had still looked like they were about to bug out of his head when he had caught up with them along the strip of green just on the other side of the trolley tracks.

To be honest, Chuck hadn't really known if it would work, it just seemed like a better alternative to try rather than jumping after Escher or letting him get away. Chuck knew that the Intersect could perform complex calculations, and that it could seemingly improve his reflexes enough to catch a knife or a falling glass, but it hadn't been until he had tried to flash on some combination of those skills and the shield that he had found that someone one already had added that function. He should of have known, he supposed. He had already discovered that someone, presumably Bryce, had included the use of a bat'leth in the 2.0.

After a bit of debate hey had ended up at a rarely used CIA facility near the Navy base. Nate had volunteered to get their car, since, as he readily pointed out, he wasn't exactly a born interrogator. For some reason Sarah thought it was less effective to interrogate Escher while wearing her Princess Leia costume. Chuck was fairly sure most men would be more inclined to spill their secrets to her after a few minutes of watching her in that outfit, but decided it would not be wise to tell her that. He was somewhat relieved that they had been able to change before Casey had arrived, however.

"Where is he?" Casey said a bit too eagerly as he burst into the small facility's main room.

"He's in the second cell." Sarah offered.

"Casey, this is an official installation." Chuck warned. Casey let out a huff.

"I'm not stupid Bartowski. Don't worry. I won't do anything that upsets your sensitivities." Casey told him, then headed back towards where Escher was being kept.

Then the three of them sat there, waiting. Nate had insisted on staying, pointing out that he could have been Escher's target for all they knew. Chuck decided not to point out that, had that had been the case, Nate probably would already be dead as Chuck hadn't flashed on Escher until after he had passed them in the crowd.

It was slightly odd. If he had been with either Sarah or Nate individually, they would have struck up a conversation right away. As it was, Chuck was having trouble thinking of a topic they would have in common. Besides him. Luckily that didn't last long. He and Nate were busy explaining to Sarah how there could be cowboys in space when Casey finally made his way out a few hours later.

"Well?" Chuck asked expectantly. Casey let out a frustrated grunt.

"His employer is a numbered Swiss bank account for all he knows, but I did find out his target." Casey told them. Chuck, Sarah and Nate, all of them looked at him expectantly to continue.

**XXX**

"Kris Kincaid, better known as K.K., is a former child prodigy turned hacker for hire. We want you to find him and offer him protection in exchange for information." Beckman told them. "We believe several of his clients would be of interest to us."

Graham was once again absent from the briefing. Chuck couldn't help but wonder if Graham was simply that much busier than Beckman, or just didn't like them. Nate had already reluctantly gone back to the convention center once they had determined Escher's target.

"What if he refuses?" Chuck asked, hesitantly.

"Then arrest him, Agent Bartowski." Beckman said, sounding slightly annoyed, before abruptly signing off.

"Looks like we're all going back to that geek festival of yours Bartowski." Casey said with a grunt.

"Nerd, Casey." Chuck corrected reflexively.


	7. The Nerd versus The Con Part II

_AN: Thank you again, everyone that review. _

_Here are some things that you might want to know:_

_Many of the streets in Down Town San Diego are one-way. Some of the streets have the trolley lines run either perpendicular to them or up the middle._

_The Gas Lamp is an area of Down Town San Diego. The sidewalks there are paved with cobblestones._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or Star Wars. I also do not own Burn Notice, from which I borrowed a few lines. _

The Nerd versus The Con Part II

**July 26, 2008**

Chuck watched the other man cautiously as he walked into the room. His movements were slow and menacingly. His face was twisted into a deep scowl and when he came close enough to see Chuck, his eyes flashed ominously.

"I don't care what kind of fancy moves you have, I am going to kill you." He growled.

"It's not that bad Casey." Chuck said dismissively.

"I'm wearing spandex." Casey said curtly, his voice little above a rumble.

"You look," Chuck paused, assessing his partner, "better than most would?" Casey let out another growl. "Casey, there are people from the Buymore at Comic-Con, do you want them to see you there?" Chuck asked. Casey gave a reluctant grunt no.

"Then you have to wear a costume with a mask. And generally, that means spandex, or something like it." Casey gave another disgruntled grunt.

"I will get you back for this Bartowski." He said curtly, then turned around and stormed off, his cape flying out behind him. As soon as Casey was around the corner and out of earshot, Chuck turned around towards Nate.

"Please tell me you got a picture of that." He asked, barely suppressing his laughter.

"Please." Nate scoffed. "I got video."

"Video of what?" Both boys turned towards the familiar voice and froze. Nate let out a sound that was half-way between a gasp and sputter. He and Sarah had decided to wear costumes in the hopes that no one would recognize them from the incident with Escher. A wig hid Sarah's blonde hair, and her face was covered by a mask, but between its cut and skin hugging fabric her outfit left little else to the imagination. After a moment, Chuck managed to shake off his girlfriend induced brain freeze to answer her question.

"Casey. In tights."

"Why would you want that?" She said with a joking smile.

"Blackmail." Chuck told her. "And overall amusement."

"Aren't you wearing tight?" She asked, amused.

"That's different. Everyone expects me to be nerdy." He walked over to her and leaned slightly down to give her a quick kiss. "You look really great, by the way." Sarah gave him another smile and traced her finger along his chest.

"So do you." Chuck felt his cheeks go red as he gave her a slightly sheepish smile. Nate cleared his throat loudly.

"I'm just going to go catch up to Mr. Grumpy Tights." He said, gesturing towards the door Casey had headed out.

Once he was gone, Sarah pulled him into a mind melting kiss. Once they pulled back for air, his concerns about the mission began to intrude on his thoughts.

"We should probably get that out of our system." He told her regretfully. "If Kincaid is affiliated with Kaminsky or his new rival, we can't be distracted." Sarah nodded. Then pulled him in again.

**XXX**

There was a reason he had switched to tech-ops. He'd do whatever he could for his friends if push came to shove. He just preferred that whatever he did didn't involve getting shot at. And so was more than happy to help Chuck with planning and surveillance. Inside the convention would be crowded, and chaotic. To give themselves a better view, they had decided to bring their surveillance van and patch into the security at the building, along with attaching cameras to their costumes. Nate was more than willing to sit out safely away from the nerd killing assassin and act as their eyes.

The agency pulled some strings to get them a parking spot close to the center, but they had thought it was still best to arrive early. Even if doing the briefing with the four of them all trying to face each other the van was, however, more than a little crowded itself.

"Nate and I pulled the credit card records and comic book subscriptions of K.K.'s known and probable alias last night." Chuck explained. "We compared those to the schedule of events over the next two days and have come up with what we think are the most likely places K.K. will go." Chuck handed out papers to both Sarah and Casey. Casey frowned.

"Are you telling me this kid had more than one comic book subscription?" Casey said in disbelief.

"He probably just doesn't want to miss an issue because he had to burn an alias or something." Nate explained rationally. Casey glared at him. Nate thought it was probably best to simply move on with the briefing without further commentary. "Right. The front has his most likely schedule." Nate said, gesturing towards the sheets. "The back has your schedule to follow along with other thing he might like."

"We're going to have to split up to cover everything." Chuck explained with a slight frown.

"We've already made sure your earpieces aren't on the same frequency as the Convention's security. You'll be able to contact each other if you need backup. And I can contact you if I see that one of you needs help." He reassured his friend.

"It's probably best if you do the surveillance on the ballrooms, Casey. They don't really let people in or out of panels once they start, so you should be able to simply circle around every few minutes and watch the lines right before they each go in." Chuck said. Casey gave a grunt and Chuck continued. "Sarah and I will be in the main room, checking out the other events on the convention floor." Chuck then turned towards him. "Nate, you keep an eye on the video feeds. And stay in the van."

**XXX**

Chuck looked good in tight clothes. For a man who steered away from showing skin, he had a rather large collection of skin hugging shirts and jeans. Most of his mission shirts clung to his arms close enough to make every bump and curve visible and his frequently worn brown shirt was so tight that sometimes she thought she could see his ribs through it. There were times when the fit of some of his button down shirts made her question whether he had ever really grown used to the slightly larger frame he had acquired while he was training to be an agent.

But wearing tighter clothes and wearing a costume made out of fabric deliberately designed to cling were two different things. He might not be as bulky as one of the characters his costume was trying to emulate, at least based on the images she had seen at the convention yesterday, but that didn't mean he wasn't nice to watch. And, as long as it didn't interfere with the mission, she didn't see any problem with admiring the view.

The agency had put them up in a small apartment for the night. It was, apparently, next to impossible to find a hotel room in San Diego during Comic-Con, and they'd told Morgan they were going back to Burbank so they couldn't really return to the one they had already booked. Plus they didn't think that if Nate had had to host Casey in his room both would come through the experience unscathed. Peering out from the Bedroom, she had been able to spy on her boyfriend for a moment as he teased Casey and joked around with his friend.

By the time they'd gotten to the convention center, the joking, teasing Chuck had shifted to the background. Moving through the convention center felt like a flat echo of the previous day. Just like yesterday, she was holding onto Chuck's hand as she weaved between people dressed in costumes she didn't recognize and booths selling things she didn't know or get. But today their schedule was dictated by a criminal's interests, not her boyfriends and instead of radiating excitement and wonder, Chuck and Nate were all business. Mostly.

"Since you guys are going to be there already, do you think you could," Nate began to ask over their ear pieces.

"No, Nate. We can't enter your name in a raffle, or getting anything signed. This is a mission." Chuck told his friend with a sigh. "You were the one that said you wanted to help, remember?"

"You're right. Of course." Nate responded. Only to burst out excitedly again a few minutes later. "Hey, is that a limited edition?"

"Nate, I'm sorry but if you're going to keep making comments like that we're going to have to turn off our audio." She told him through her watch. "Can you see anyone who might be Kincaid?"

"Sorry. No." Nate said apologetically

"Thank you. Let us know if you do." Sarah turned off her microphone and turned towards her boyfriend, who appeared to be transfixed by something a glass case. "Did you want to look at the limited edition thingy-ma-bob?" She asked Chuck. He pulled his eyes away from the case, and looked at her with a large smile before taking off towards the booth's cashier. Sarah followed after him with a resigned sigh. She really wished he would start sharing his revelations before he ran off to put them into practice. It was nice to see a bit of his previous excitement infused into him in agent mode. And it was still fun to watch him walk away.

**XXX**

Casey let out a frustrated growl as he finished checking through yet another group of geeks. He was beginning to suspect Bartowski has screwed up in his analysis. He'd never tell Bartowski, but he was more than a little surprised.

He'd also never tell Bartowski that he wasn't actually that upset to be here. It could be worse. Bartowski could have had him down on the first floor. At least up here he had some room to breathe without running into a Klingon or Darth Vader want-a-be. And yes, he did know what those were. He had grown up in the seventies and eighties for God's sake.

If it hadn't been for the kid's inability to stay out of trouble, he would have been stuck at the Buymore. Since every moron that worked there was down here, he had been scheduled to work all weekend. The lack of other employees may have removed on annoyance but left a far worse one. Customers. Sure he would have preferred to have spent last night at home, feet up on the coffee table, hot pocket in hand while he watched that documentary on the military channel, but this way he might actually get some gun play.

As he made his way down yet another line, Casey suddenly heard a sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

"Jeffrey! Can't you control yourself? At least wait until after I take the picture to try a reach around." Casey froze momentarily. Were those idiots everywhere?

"It just looked so, frothy." Twiddle Dumber said.

"It wasn't even real beer Jeffrey! Now we have to pay for that Elf's costume to be cleaned and we didn't get a photo of her buxom friend." Scolded his slightly less dim companion. Casey waited until they had passed. When they had rounded the corner Casey let out an involuntarily sigh of relief. Yeah, it could have been worse.

**XXX**

Chuck spotted Kincaid while they were staking out yet another signing. Neither of them thought that Kincaid would be quite as acrobatic as Escher in his attempts to escape, but they didn't want to him to run and end up losing him in the crowd.

Once she had caught up to Chuck earlier, he had shared that he and Nate had discovered while combing through Kincaid's financial records that he had lost an auction on e-bay for the Limited Edition Thing-ma-bob. Which meant that they had bait, and that she had to apologize to Nate. Chuck positioned them in a booth near where the signing line would let out. Then walked out right as Kincaid passed. The toy fell out of the bag with precision timing, and Chuck became Kincaid's temporary new best friend.

It was oddly interesting to watch Chuck work. He had a unique ability with assets. Not simply because he was a good liar, but because he saw the best in people. He trusted them to do the right thing. And that belief came through, even when he himself was lying. It made them feel at ease. It even made them want to live up to that trust.

"You know, I could show you where I got it, but I think this was their last one." Chuck told Kincaid apologetically, "Maybe we can work something out. I completely understand what you're going through. There is this one Star War's figurine that I've been searching for forever."

They traded stories. Then Chuck revealed that they had conveniently been headed towards the same thing Kincaid was. By the time they had made their way through the next line, Kincaid took the bait and agreed to come with them to lunch to arrange a trade. To keep up the cover, Sarah decided to call Casey rather than using their earpieces as they headed out the back of the convention center and headed towards where the van was parked.

"Hey, Casey." She said, in her overly cheerful voice.

"Please tell me you grabbed the geek." He grumbled.

"Chuck managed to find the issue he wanted, so we were going to go out to lunch to celebrate. Why don't we meet you around front to pick you up?" She bubbled

"About time. Meet you by the Staircase."

"Great. We'll see you there." They crossed the street running behind the convention center. Then the shooting started.

**XXX**

The moment he heard the first gunshot, K.K.'s eyes bugged out and he looked like he was going to run for the hills. It wasn't exactly an unusual reaction. Chuck grabbed K.K.'s arm and, along with Sarah, pulled him to the van and pushed him in. Ordinarily a van wouldn't be the best getaway vehicle, but Casey had driven down their team's normal surveillance van. Between the gadgets and modification he and Casey had respectively asked to be added to it, it was a better choice than most cars would have been.

They had dove into the backseat behind K.K. and Sarah had shimmied up into the front seat past a slightly bewildered Nate. As soon as Sarah accelerated out of the parking spot, Nate realized their plan and scrambled to buckle himself into the front passenger seat.

"Why are they shooting at us? Who are you people?" K.K. asked panickedly. Chuck decided to just go with the most straight forward explanation. Sarah made a sharp turn, inadvertently forcing K.K. to bang against the van's walls.

"We're here to protect you. Those men back there, they're trying to kill you."

"That's crazy." They could hear someone shooting at them as Sarah made another sharp turn.

"We work for the government Kris. We know the kind of business you deal with." Chuck quickly explained.

"Look, I might do some things that aren't strictly legal, but they aren't the kind of illegal that gets people to shoot at you." Chuck braced himself as the van swerved again.

"Wrong way Sarah, wrong way." Nate cried in a panic from the front seat.

"We've already arrested another assassin yesterday that I.D.'d you as his target. You need to think Kris. Is there anyone who might want to hurt you? Has there been anything unusual about one of your customers lately? Has anyone been upset over your work?"

"Sidewalk, Sarah, Sidewalk." Called Nate. The van momentarily bounced up and down and Chuck ideally realized that they must be in the Gas Lamp district.

"There was this one guy. He asked me to trace the physical location an e-mail came from. I kept on hitting dead ends." K.K. said hurriedly.

"What was his name?" Chuck said. He felt as Sarah made a sharp u-turn.

"This is a one way street Sarah!" Nate said.

"I don't know. We never met in person. He used one of those voice changers and transferred the money from a numbered account."

"This didn't send up any red flags?" Chuck asked incredulously.

"Trolley, Trolley!" Nate warned.

"My customers don't exactly find me in the yellow pages. He said he had been recommended by another client." Chuck stopped and braced himself as the car's momentum on the next turn tried to push them into the opposite van wall.

"What customers? We need to know who we're dealing with in order to protect you."

"A women. She asked me to create a virus for her."

"Pedestrian!" Chuck heard from the front seat. Sarah swerved.

"Do you know her name?" Chuck asked.

"No. " Chuck grit his teeth "But she said she worked for McTiernan Industries."

"What about the virus?"

"It was just supposed to break through a firewall and siphon off information from one of her company's competitors."

"Red light! Red Light."

"Do you know the other company? Would they know you had created the virus?"

"No. I never touched their computers. I don't even know who they are. That wasn't part of my job. I just got her in. That's it." There was the sound of horns honking, then the crunch of metal and glass behind them.

"Could you describe the woman to a sketch artist?" Chuck asked. K.K. slightly nervously looked towards the rear-view camera's monitor showing the wreckage left in their wake.

"Yeah. I think so." Sarah continued to speed around corners for the next few minutes, with Nate and K.K.'s slightly panicked breathing as the only sound. When no other cars came out of the woodwork to follow them, Sarah began to slow down.

"Nate, could you call Casey. We should ask him if he wants us to pick him up or to meet him back at base." Sarah finally said. "Then we can call our bosses to figure out a safe house to bring you to." She explained, gesturing her head back towards K.K.

"Right. Fine." Nate finally breathed out. "But can we switch drivers?"

**July 27, 2008 (Barely)**

Sarah and Chuck scuffled through the courtyard back towards their apartment. They had brought Kincaid to a safe house on the way back to L.A., then dropped Nate off at the airport.

"Should we grab our luggage?" Chuck asked. Sarah glanced at her watch. Casey had elected to drive their car and meet them back in Burbank, so he was most likely already home and in bed.

"We can get it tomorrow." She told him. When Chuck opened the door, Sarah was surprised to see Ellie in the kitchen apparently preparing a midnight snack.

"Hey you guys. You're home early." She greeted them.

"There was something wrong with one of my machines at the Orange Orange." Sarah told her. "We had to drive out to the nearest supplier to get a part and spent a night out there." Hopefully that would be consistent enough with the story Chuck had told Morgan.

"That's too bad." Ellie said, giving Sarah a conspiratory wink. "Chuck, you got a package while you were gone. I signed for it. It should be in your room." Chuck glanced towards their door warily.

"Thanks Sis." Chuck told Ellie with a slightly forced smile. "I think we'll head to bed."

"Goodnight."

The package was on their bed. Chuck looked carefully at each side, then gingerly picked it up to see the bottom. There was a small Tron sticker stuck to the bottom. Chuck shot her a smile. They sat down next to each other and carefully poured the contents of the box onto the bed in between them There was an envelope addressed to Ellie, a note for Chuck and a USB drive. Chuck began to frown as he read the note.

"What is it?" She asked. Chuck bit his lip.

"My parents are cutting off communication for a while. Someone's been trying to trace my parents location through one of the e-mail accounts my mother's sent her messages to Ellie through."

"Ellie?" Chuck shook his head.

"My Dad thinks they've only traced it back to them. They've closed out all the account so that hopefully no one will get the chance to see where the messages are going." He let out a long breath. "The USB drive is more information on the crossovers." He said dismissively, then handed her the letter. She quickly skimmed over its content.

"They said they're going to try to be back for the wedding." She offered. He gave her a wan smile.

She handed back the note. Chuck put it, along with the envelope for Ellie and the drive back in the box, then placed it on the floor. He closed his eyes, and let out a long breath. Sarah quietly maneuvered herself to sit behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling herself close and resting her head on his shoulder. She sat there, holding him, until he was ready to move again and get ready for bed.

**XXX**

Dianne Beckman's position in the NSA afforded her a very high level of security, even in her private residence. Years as an agent had taught her to also add security of her own additions. Which is why finding a mysterious USB drive placed on her kitchen table when she woke up in the morning was worrying. When she saw who had signed the note placed beside the drive, it was even more so. Carefully she walked around the table, examining the thing from all angles before gingerly picking both it and the note up for closer inspection.

"What are you playing at Mary?" She couldn't help but wonder aloud.

_AN: In case you were wondering, McTiernan Industries was a subsidiary of the Ring mentioned in Subway _

_Also, I have to confess I couldn't decide which characters Chuck, Sarah and Casey should dress as. Originally I planned for them to be Ted Kord's Blue Beetle, Barbara Gordon's Batgirl and Batman respectively. I even had a scene I deleted explaining the choice. But in the end I thought it would be better just to let the reader chose. _


	8. Chuck versus The Date

_Thank you everyone who's reviewed. I know I'm a bit behind in responding. This chapter was supposed to be a quick little chapter and it ended up taking up more of my time than I thought, so I ended up deciding simply to simply get it out quickly and respond later. _

_AN: Things that might be good to know:_

_In Delorean Chuck brings Sarah a Chocolate Croissant to cheer her up after her Dad has left._

_In Balcony Sarah mentioned that her maternal grandparents owned an Italian Restaurant (or at least they had prior to her parents engagement). _

_In a chapter of Do Over Sarah mentioned she thought it was extremely cute that Chuck signed his name with a heart. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck. I also do not own the Princess Bride. _

Chuck versus The Dates

**July 30, 2008**

A part of him had known it was inevitable that his parents would have to go to ground again, but somehow it still hurt that they had cut off all communication. It also left them virtually blind when it came to the technology that had been spilling over into their reality. The information his father had left confirmed what Chuck had already suspected, that the small intrusions into this universe were larger than his father had originally estimated. His father's currently believed that they could include as much as entire computer programs, weapons schematics or chunks of human memory but not physical objects. Which meant that if the weapons Chuck had run across did originate in another dimension, someone had to be finding or controlling these intrusions, storing the information they contain and using them to manufacture the weapons themselves

The most likely suspect was Leeyrder Industries. Not only had they had an unusually high number of crossovers at their facility, but his father's most recent data suggested that there had been fewer intrusions elsewhere since they had begun operating. Without actually seeing their facilities, his father couldn't be sure but he theorized that they had found a way to control and funnel the intrusion into this dimension. Perhaps even initiate them.

While all this theory and speculation was interesting, it didn't answer the practical question of what kinds of things they could be facing, and it irritated Chuck that he still couldn't be sure if his father was being deliberately obscure or simply didn't know.

And then there was his Mother's letter. He had made sure he was the one to retrieve the mail on Monday and slipped it in between the other envelopes before handing them to Ellie. Ellie hadn't mentioned it. She hadn't had any reaction that he had seen. And for some reason that was incredibly troubling.

Chuck knew he hadn't been the best company over the last few days. Today he planned to make up for it to Sarah.

As quietly as possible he maneuvered out from under Sarah's grasp and slipped out of the bed. Carefully he walked out of their room, and opened the door. He shut it as silently as possible and continued to sneak down the hall towards the kitchen. Once there, he pulled out a breakfast tray from underneath the cabinets, and begun to lay out what he needed.

Opening up the fridge he pushed back the various rarely used containers he had used to as camouflage and pulled out the pink box he had hidden in the back. He opened it up, and frowned. It was empty. Or, rather, the pastries he had picked up for himself, Devon and Ellie were still there, but the chocolate croissant that he had purposely gone out of his way to buy at Sarah's favorite L.A. bakery was gone.

He stared at the box. He moved the other pastries around, searching. Finally he leaned back down and began moving the other food around, as if hoping that it would cause the croissant to magically appear. When it became clear that was not the case, he put the box back. Looking up at the clock he did a quick calculation in his head. He should be able to get to the local baker and back before Sarah had finished her shower and sat down for breakfast.

He Carefully made his way back to their bedroom, and grabbed the first set of clothes he could reach, all the while watching his sleeping girlfriend to make sure she wasn't about to stir. Racing out of the apartment, he set out on his new quest.

**XXX**

"You don't sell croissants?"

"I'm sorry sir. We have scones? Muffins and cinnamon rolls? Or Bundt Cake?" The sales woman asked hopefully.

"No. No thank you." Chuck said with a sigh.

Apparently Echo Park was a no chocolate croissant zone this morning. The first bakery he had tried had turned out to be closer to a restaurant. He had still asked, but they had only had plain croissants. He had then tried another bakery close by, that had carried various cakes but no pastries. Finally he had remembered seeing the glass pastry case in this shop at one point and decided to give it one last try. Glancing down at his watch, he realized Sarah had probably already taken her shower by now. He might be able to make it back in time so that they could stop at a bakery on the way to work, but they would be cutting it close.

He made his way back to their building, jumped out of his car and hurried back towards the apartment. He expected Sarah to be sitting at the table or, if he was really lucky, still in the shower. Instead there was only a note on the table.

"Ellie called. She forgot her scrub top. Went to drop it off so she won't have to walk around the Hospital in her Bra. See you at work." She signed it with a heart. Which was slightly uncharacteristic but incredibly cute.

He let out another frustrated sigh. Glancing back at his watch he realized that he would have to rush if he wanted to make it to the Buymore in time for work, and began shucking off clothes in a far less fun way then he had planned for this morning.

**XXX**

"Thank you Sarah, for bringing this over so quickly." Ellie told her as she accepted the top. "I really thought I had an extra one in my locker." She gave Sarah a slightly embarssed smile.

"It's no problem." Sarah assured her.

Sarah studied Ellie a moment. Chuck had hoped Ellie would come to him to talk about it their Mother's note. To Sarah's knowledge, however, Ellie hadn't even acknowledged it. Chuck now seemed on edge, as if he was just waiting for her to explode.

"Ellie," Sarah asked cautiously, "are you alright?" There was a flash of surprise across Ellie's face, but she soon schooled her face back to neutral.

"Of course, Why? Is everything alright with you? I know when you told Chuck you'd move in you were probably expecting a place with more space and fewer Tron posters." Ellie joked. Sarah bit back a frown at the deflection. Pressing the issue might get Ellie to open up. Or it might just make her close down completely.

"I think anywhere I lived with Chuck would have a Tron poster on the wall." She said with a slight chuckle. Ellie smiled.

"I do enjoy having you guys near." Ellie said earnestly. Her grin grew slightly. "Especially when Chuck brings home pastries for breakfast like this morning." Sarah's brow furrowed slightly.

"I don't remember seeing pastries this morning." Ellie gave her a slightly apologetic smile.

"That's my fault." She leaned in conspiratorially. "I hid them from Devon." She gave a chuckle. Sarah suddenly imagined Ellie, dressed in mission gear, dropping down from their apartment ceiling to retrieve a muffin from some hidey hole, and burst out laughing herself.

**XXX**

By the time the Buymore's doors actually opened, Chuck had come to terms with the fact that breakfast in bed was a bust and began to move on to the rest of the day. He should be able to visit over his lunch break and he had made reservations for tonight at a little Italian restaurant. Despite this early misstep, everything else could still go as planned.

He settled in behind the Nerd Herd desk and began his day. Half an hour later while he was explaining to a customer that the reason his phone wasn't working was because he had put the cover on backwards, for a second time, his own phone began to vibrate. Glancing down he saw the familiar message to head to the Orange Orange for a briefing.

After finally convincing the customer that his phone was indeed fixed and sending him on his way, Chuck jumped over the Nerd Herd counter and headed towards the yogurt shop. Casey and Sarah were already in the backroom when he arrived. Ignoring Casey's scowl, he leaned in and gave Sarah a kiss.

"Good Morning." He said, with a small smile.

"Good Morning Agent Bartowski." An irritated sounding General Beckman echoed from the room's television. He and Sarah both jumped apart slightly like two teens caught by a parent. Chuck didn't meet the General's eyes when he turned to face the screen.

"Now that we have the Morning greetings out of the way perhaps we should start the briefing." Graham stated. Chuck shifted slightly uncomfortably as his boss continued. "Among other aspects of his plea agreement Mr. Kincaid has been working with us to identify the customer who hired him to create a virus earlier this month. Based on his description to a sketch artist we believe that the woman involved was Laura Cleary." Chuck couldn't help but grimace. He wasn't sure what had changed in this timeline but Cleary seemed to be uncomfortably omnipresent in the last few months.

"Do we know where she plans on using the virus?" Sarah asked.

"Not definitively." Graham told her.

"However, we believe we may have a lead." Beckman said, a hair smugly. "Following Fulcrum's collapse the CIA has been restructuring several of its operations. The team from one of the operations based in Rome was recalled a month and a half ago. When a new team arrived at the location the day before yesterday, they discovered that Cleary along with two Ring agents had entered the house two weeks ago."

Casey let off his stupid CIA grunt.

"How did we not realize the base had been breached?" Sarah asked more diplomatically.

"All of the sensitive material had been removed and the server disconnected from our intranet when the team left. Only a minimum security system was left in place. As the house was used primarily as a personal residence for the team members, it had no internal cameras and Cleary was able to bypass the perimeter security using the systems old master pass code." Graham answered.

"The current team has done a preliminary sweep and it appears that nothing has been taken. However, we need to make sure that Cleary didn't infect the base's server with the virus before we reconnect it to our Intranet. Agent Bartowski will be examining the server while Major Casey will do another sweep." Beckman added. Chuck couldn't help but frown.

"And Agent Walker Ma'am?" Casey quickly asked.

"A team has recently become available to begin construction on the Burbank base next month. Agent Walker was scheduled to oversee the construction manager's initial evaluation of the site today. However, if she wishes to go with your team on the mission, we could postpone." Graham said with a knowing smile.

"No, that fine. There's no need to reschedule." Sarah answered quickly, then sent him a slight glare to make sure he didn't object. They had been waiting for Castle's construction to rise to the top of the agency's project list for almost a year now. As much as he wished Sarah could join them in Rome, he knew there was no way she was going to risk bumping Castle from the top of the list and back into the project pool again simply to go with them on a minor mission.

"Very well." Beckman stated. "Wheels up in half an hour." As the screen turned black, Chuck did a quick set of calculations in his head. One of the Agency's jets could get him and Casey to Italy and back in less than 10 hours.

"Chuck?" Sarah said, drawing his attention. Casey had already headed out. Chuck bit his lip and turned towards her.

"I made reservations for us tonight at eight, but the restaurant's open late. Maybe if you call, we can push it back or,"

"Chuck." Sarah interrupted. He stopped, and looked back at her. She placed her hand on his face, tracing the edge of his cheek with her thumb. "It doesn't matter. Just be careful." He smiled back, before taking her hand and placing a kiss on her palm.

"I'm going to try to be back tonight. I promise." Sarah rolled her eyes.

"Just come home safely. That's the only promise I want." He nodded, then wrapped his arms around her pulling her in as close as physically possible. He kissed her long and slow, savoring the feel of her lips.

**XXX**

Casey snapped the edges of a set of bookcases back into place before moving to the next potential hiding place in the house. The place was a virtual honey comb of slips and secret stashes. All empty. How long they'd been empty and what had been in was anybody's guess. He poked around inside one of the artificial plant baskets. No self respecting agent would think it was a decent hiding spot, but this was a CIA house.

"Try the table leg." At the suggestion, Casey looked over towards where Bartowski was working on the server. The kid had seemed anxious since the moment they boarded the plane. Not pre-mission jitters, but a twitchy rush. "The middle seam, reminds me of one of the tables at the Spy Museum." Bartowski added without looking away from the screen.

With a beleagued sigh, Casey placed the plant on the floor and kneeled down, laying the table flat so he could unscrew the leg, first on the top, then at the seam. The thing came apart, revealing yet another empty hiding spot. Casey screwed it back up without saying anything to Bartowski.

"You making any progress?" He asked.

"There's nothing." Bartowski said distractedly. "Whatever Cleary wanted, she didn't use the computer or try to use the secure connection."

"Yeah, well, there's at least a dozen different empty stashes in this place. She could have taken something from any of them." He looked around at the now disheveled vase. "I suppose we could look through the files, see if Cleary had a connection with any of the agents that used this place. Maybe then we could at least know what we're looking for." Bartowski began walking over to him with a nod, but suddenly froze, staring at something in the next room.

"We may not have to do that." He said, walking quickly past. Bartowski stopped at a bedroom wall that had been just barely visible from the room with the server, and began running his hands along the edges of a photograph of the Eiffel Tower hanging there. He stopped, pushing something that immediately beeped. The picture slid over revealing a TR-15 safe.

"Congratulations, you've found yet another hiding space Cleary might have taken something from. And this one has a password." Casey said sarcastically. Bartowski actually looked smug. He ran back towards his bag and grabbed a device he then promptly plugged into the safe.

"It also keeps track when someone tries to opens it." He said, fiddling with the device. A moment later there was another beep and a number of dates popped up onto the screen.

"Which in this case was July 17, 2008." Alright, maybe the kid had a reason to be smug.

"Which doesn't tell us what she took or why." Casey pointed out.

"The last time the safe was opened before that was in 2005." Bartowski said slowly.

"And if we can figure out who was using this place then, we can maybe find out what she took." Casey reluctantly finished. Luckily Bartowski seemed too distracted to realize he could gloat. There was another beep and he reached up and pulled the door of the safe open. It was, empty.

"Wonderful." Casey added. Bartowski closed up the door, and slid the photograph back into place.

"I'd bet this was Shaw's base." Chuck finally said. "He's the only CIA agent we know that Cleary had a connection with." Casey snorted. Slitting his throat could be called a connection he supposed.

"Even if you're right, that still doesn't tell us what Shaw wanted to hide so much." He pointed out.

"But we can figure that out at home." Chuck said, suddenly taking on the same nervous energy he had barely contained on the flight over as he rushed to clean up his gear around the server. Great. Another five hours stuck in a small metal tube while his partner jittered like a five year old waiting for an ice cream cone.

**XXX**

Sarah was woken up with a kiss. She blinked awake to find Chuck standing beside the bed next to her. Looking around she realized she must have shifted over onto Chuck's side of the bed in her sleep. And that she had buried her face in his pillow.

"I told you I'd make it back in time." He said with a smile, gesturing towards the clock. "I even have ten minutes to spare." He pulled a plate with a single cupcake on it out with a grin. "Happy Birthday."

Some part of her was upset he had dug into her past. And if it had been anyone else she probably would have been angry. But it was Chuck, and he was so cute standing there holding his rather sad looking chocolate cupcake with the single candle he stuck into the top that that part was quickly squashed.

"I know it isn't much to look at, but the grocery store was pretty much the only place open." He began to ramble apologetically. She pushed herself up to kneel on the bed, and pulled him into a short kiss.

"Thank you." After a moment he reached into his pocket and pulled out the long lighter Ellie usually kept in the kitchen and lit the candle. She sat back down on bed to blow it out.

Chuck dragged over a chair, and placed the cupcake down on a tray precariously balanced on top. He studied it a moment, as if making sure it wasn't going to topple over now that it had the added weight.

"So do you want a big half, or a little half?" He asked. She gave him an amused smile and wrapped her ankles around his knees, pulling him forward so that he toppled onto the bed on top of her with a little yelp.

"I think I want my present." She said, already moving her hand to pull off his mission top. He gave her a half smile and began to help.

"As you wish."

**July 31, 2008**

Chuck was sitting on the edge of the courtyard fountain, waiting nervously for Ellie when she came home from her shift.

"Hey there." She said in surprise. "Did you get locked out?" Chuck shook his head.

"No," He told her, taking a deep breath. "El, we need to talk. I saw the letter." Ellie looked away for a moment before nodding. At least she hadn't tried to pretend she didn't know what he was talking about.

"Why don't we sit." She said, nodding over towards the large outdoor fireplace in the courtyard. After they had settled onto it she took a breath.

"Mom contacted me a few months ago. She and Dad are back together, and she wanted to know how I was. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to get your hopes up, that she'd be around." Ellie said. "And I guess a part of me wanted to have her to myself. Just for a little while." She conceded.

"I should have told you. I'm sorry. But it doesn't matter now." She shrugged. "The note you saw was Mom's goodbye. She's not going to be writing to me anymore."

"Did she give you a reason?" He asked cautiously. Ellie looked off slightly, biting her lip.

"Sort of." She finally said. Chuck looked at her to continue. She let out another sigh. "She said that someone was trying to find them using the e-mail address and that they didn't want them to trace it back to me. That is was for my protection." She said dismissively.

"Which is exactly the same kind of," She hesitated briefly as if biting back a word, "hogwash Dad you used say."

Chuck looked at Ellie for a moment. Unsure of what to say next. Weighing his option.

"What if it wasn't?" He said, testing the waters. "What if Mom and Dad really were trying to protect us?" Ellie just gave him a sad smile.

"Chuck, I know you want to think the best of people, and I love you for it. And I do still love Mom and Dad, despite everything. But if they really just wanted to protect us, they would have come home a long time ago." She gave him a slight squeeze on the knee, then stood up and headed into the apartment.

_AN: several things that were too spoilery to be put at the beginning of the chapter:_

_Yvonne Stahovski's birthday is July 30__th__. Since we've never been given an indication of Sarah's birthday (and I have just a little bit of bias towards that date) I decided to make it Sarah's. _

_In Living Dead Chuck and Sarah find a TR-15 installed into Shaw's penthouse behind a framed photograph of the Eiffel tower. _

_In American Hero Shaw stated that he had been stationed in Rome for two years._


	9. Team Bartowski versus The Family Man

_AN: Ordinarily when a character isn't given a last name, I give them the actor's name, or something similar. NBC did this for a few of the names in the spydossier. The problem in this chapter is that the character in question speaks with a Russian accent, but is played by Dolph Lundgren, who is Swedish and has a very Swedish name. I spent more time than was frankly sane trying to find an equivalent Russian name. Finally I decided to just make a joke. Since the episode in which we meet Marco is also the one in which Morgan goes by the alias "Michael Carmichael" I have dubbed the Volkoff's employee Marco Markovic. _

_Pierre, Victor and Hercule were listed by Volkoff in Leftovers as his top assassins in North America. I wasn't able to find the names of any of the actors that played them._

_Dupont is the French equivalent of "Doe", Lefurgey is similar in meaning to Smith and Chauvin means bald._

_Ivan __Fyodorov__ was the name of one of the men that worked with Heather Chandler in Cougars._

_In Anniversary Casey and Sarah are planning to take out a factory owned by Volkoff in Venezuela when Marco diverts their plane._

_In Masquerade Vivian tells Chuck and Sarah that she believes her father is an oil executive._

_In Tooth Devon asks Ellie to buy him __ER: The Complete Series_ _to watch while he's sick with faux- Malaria because he thinks it is "the best show ever."_

_In this chapter people will be speaking in Russian. Since I do not speak Russian I decided to use the same trick they do in comic books. All text placed between 's is supposed to be translated from Russian. _

_Moscow is 11 ahead of Los Angeles. Caracas, Venezuela is 2 and ½ hours ahead (I didn't realize that was a possibility until I looked it up, so I decided to share.)_

_Thank you, everyone who had reviewed (or favorite or alerted). I'm sorry this took so long. I'm halfway done with the next chapter, so hopefully there won't be another big delay in the near future._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck. Or E.R._

Team Bartowski versus The Family Man

**August 15, 2008**

Pausing a moment at a small clearing along the trail, Chuck looked out over the chilly vista in front of him.

Two days ago, Beckman had called to inform them that she had received a collection of information on several former Volkoff employees that may still be working for either Kaminsky or his new competitor. One of them was Marco Markovic. If it was anyone other than Beckman, Chuck probably would have thought it was a joke. What kind of person names their child Marco if their last name is Markovic?

As soon as Beckman had pulled up Marco's picture, however, it had seemed less funny. Marco was the man that had held Sarah and Casey hostage in Moscow during the other timeline in order to draw him out.

Beckman's new source had indicated that while Markovic sided with Kaminsky when the company dissolved, due to the recent instability in Kaminsky's organization he might be willing to feed them information in exchange for providing protection and asylum to his family.

In order to cultivate Marco as an asset, they had to first make contact with him. Marco had booked transportation under an alias. The information given to Beckman by her contact had shown that that his travel itinerary would take Marco roughly to the location of a former Volkoff installation. The culmination of which had landed them trekking through the mountains of Venezuela during the southern hemisphere's winter. The factory was situation in what Chuck suspected was one of the few areas that was technically within the tropics, but at high enough elevation that it was cold all year, and snowed in August. It must have felt just like home for Volkoff.

Casey was in Russia. He was supposed to meet a CIA agent there that Beckman had vetted and prepare to grab Marco's family as soon as need be once Chuck and Sarah had negotiated a deal with Marco.

Sarah walked up beside Chuck and reached out, giving his hand as much of a squeeze as possible through their gloves. They were posing as a tourist couple, and the only tourists in the area now were here for hiking. They had engineered a "chance" meeting with Marco last night, and planned to do so again tonight, but today he had left town, presumable to visit the defunct factory, and while they waited for him to return they had to play their part. If their hike just happened to circle the area the CIA believed had Volkoff's old factory so that they could do their own assessment of its viability, all the better.

They heard the explosion before they had caught sight of the factory. After rushing to a spot where they could get a clear view, they stood there a moment, staring at the burning compound with trained eyes. Then they wordlessly turned and hurried back down the path towards the small village to call Casey and, hopefully, be able to search Markovic's room before his murderer did.

**XXX**

He couldn't help staring at her. To be fair she was the kind of woman that it was almost inevitable not to stare at. Casey hadn't been too pleased when Beckman had told him that he would be partnered with yet another CIA agent on this mission, but Alex Forrester was unlike his other partners. She was practically the definition of no nonsense and by the book. Her file showed she liked guns and had no hesitation to do whatever was necessary regardless of the emotions involved. She was the kind of girl he could really like. The kind of girl he should really like. Which made the bubbles of guilt he felt rise up whenever he caught himself unconsciously tracing her curves with his eyes all the more puzzling.

They had been keeping an eye on Anna Markovic for the last two days. So far, the woman seemed to be exactly what she claimed: the attentive mother to two small children and loving wife to a man she thought worked for an oil executive. The former Casey had no doubt about after watching her with her son and daughter. The later Casey suspected was less than accurate. While she might very well love Marco, in his experience, the wife always suspected more than they were letting on.

Bartowski called while they sat in a restaurant outside of the Markovics' apartment building.

"Someone blew up the factory." Bartowski said, without preamble.

"Marco?" Casey asked. Even half a world away Casey could imagine Bartowski shaking his head.

"I don't think so." Bartowski said, hesitantly. "All of his vehicles were still there when we got there. He could have hiked out, but there's only the road and the trail we hiked in on and Sarah and I haven't run into him on either."

"Which do you think they were going for?" Casey asked, now watching Forest carefully, trying to judge whether she had any reaction to his side of the conversation. It never hurt to be a bit more paranoid in their profession.

"I don't know. Sarah and I are heading over to see if someone's gotten to his rooms yet." Bartowski sounded slightly out of breath. They must have called him while they were still working their way back. "How do you want to play this?" He finally asked. "You're the one with more experience with these Russian underworld types. Do you think Marco would have some sort of contingency plan for his family?" With almost any other agent Casey would have thought the question was about whether or not they could still get information out of this operation. With Bartowski, he knew it was probably the closest he thought he could get away with asking whether Casey thought Marco's family would be safe, and if not, whether they might still be able to work out a deal for them.

"I'll take care of it." Casey finally told him. "Search the rooms then get out of there." Stuffing the phone back in his pocket, Casey stood up and turned to Forrest. "We're moving in."

"They've already established a deal?" She asked, dubiously.

"Marco's dead." He said simply, motioning to the waiter to bring them their bill. Forrest crossed her arms and stood, positioning herself between him and the door.

"Our orders were only to provide the Markovics protection if we had verified that the husband provided information." She said, pointedly.

"Our orders were to provide the Markovics protection in exchange for information. The only thing that has changed is Anna Markovic is now the prospective asset instead of her husband. Markovic wouldn't leave the country without providing his wife with some insurance in case he was killed."

"And where have you gotten that information." She said suspiciously.

"It's what I would have done." He threw the money for their bill down on the table, and pushed passed her out the door.

**XXX**

Markovic's rooms looked untouched, and not in the perfectly clean way that would suggest that someone was trying to cover their tracks. His luggage was there, as were all the little things you forget to put away or do when you leave a hotel room for the day. It was still possible that it had simply been someone skilled that had looked through Marco's room and tried to evade detection, or that Marco had similarly slipped away but it was increasing looking like someone had been trying to destroy Kaminsky's ability to use the factory, and catching Markovic and his men up in the explosion had simply been an accident, or a bonus.

"Should we tell Casey?" Sarah asked, as they began to search themselves. Chuck paused, staring at the drawer he was currently searching for a moment before glancing towards her.

"No. He's already made his decision. Either way, calling him now might only make it harder for him to justify it to Beckman."

**XXX**

"What the heck was that?" Casey said angrily as he pulled Forrest away from Mrs. Markovic towards the entry hall.

"She was being uncooperative."

"You charged in, announced her husband was dead and then threatened to shoot one of her children, of course she was being uncooperative."

"It was only a tranq gun. I was going to use a low dose of sedatives." Casey gritted his teeth.

"Stay here." He told her before adding a phrase he never thought he'd utter. "And try not to shoot anything."

When he walked back into the living room, he felt a twinge of guilt at the way Markovic's widow flinched.

Mrs. Markovic, I know that we haven't exactly given you a lot of reason to trust us. But we are here for your protection. Casey told her. It should be Bartowski that was doing this. Getting people to trust him wasn't exactly Casey's strong suit.

And how do I know your telling the truth? Or that Marco's dead? For all know you're the ones who killed him.

Because I think you know that if we were you'd already be dead. Mrs. Markovic's mouth twitched slightly into a frown. Look, I'm betting you knew a bit more about your husband's business dealings than he thought. And that means you know he worked with some very dangerous people that would just as soon shoot you and your children and then search the house for whatever he left behind. We haven't done that, and we're not going to do that. And I promise, if you come with us, not only will we protect you from those people, but whatever information you give us will be used to take down not just the men that killed your husband, but also the ones that used him and put him in a position to be killed everyday Casey said, hoping, for once, that a bit of Bartowski had rubbed off on him.

Markovic's widow watched him a second, as if trying to measure the truth of his statement with just her stare. Then she nodded.

There's a safe behind the painting above our, she swallowed back the word before continuing above the bed in the master bedroom. There should be something in there.

**XXX**

"What were you thinking Major Casey. I might have expected something like this from Agent Bartowski or even Agent Walker, but I thought you would have more sense than to not only offer this woman protection but actually bring her onto U.S. soil without authorization. The CIA cannot simply offer asylum to every criminal's widow because you feel sorry for her." Graham shouted at them from the screen in Casey's apartment.

"I do realize that, sir." Casey ground out "But I didn't believe we had time to ask for authorization. As for the offer of asylum, not only has Anna Markovic provided us with information left to her by her husband, but she has agreed to be debriefed. She has spent the last decade involved with those associated with Kaminsky and Volkoff Industries. She's most likely heard more things passing than the little we've been able to gather in the last few months." Graham looked slightly sour. Beckman, who had been oddly silent up to that point, looked less so.

"Very well Major, if she can provide information, and if that information checks out, we will offer her asylum. However, until that point she is your team's responsibility and is under your protection. And if she cannot give us any information, or if it turns out to be some kind of trap, it will be your responsibility to send her home." Graham said, gruffly. "Agent Forest, you will be returning to Washington immediately." He added before cutting off the connection. Beside them Agent Forest gave Casey a smug grin.

"Enjoy playing babysitter, Major." She grabbed her bag and headed towards the door with what could best be described as something between a march and a flounce.

**XXX**

Since he had already gained Makovic's trust, the Team decided Casey should debrief her. That was fine by him since it mean he didn't have to be the one to watch her two children while she was being interviewed.

Markovic hadn't cried on the plane over until after the children had fallen back asleep. As she came down the stairs toward his living room, Casey noticed she wasn't crying, but her eyes looked red.

Mrs. Marokvic, I'm going to have to ask you some questions about what you know about the man your husband worked for. He told her once she sat down. She studied him a second, before speaking.

Why are you helping us? She asked before explainingI might not understand English, but even from the room upstairs I could hear them shouting Is it because of them? She nodded slightly behind him. He turned around and grimaced when he saw she was looking towards picture of him with Alex and Kathleen. He must have missed it when he had cleared the apartment earlier.

That's just window dressing. He told her. She gave him a ghost of a smile.

If it was window dressing you wouldn't look so upset I saw it. He was slightly impressed.

Alright. He told her Let's just say I don't like the idea of a child having to pay for his or her father's sins, and leave it at that. She nodded in understanding.

Marco tried to keep his business dealings away from me and the children. But there were times when that wasn't possible. One night a few months ago, a woman came to the house. She had worked with Marco at Volkoff. Her mouth pulled up in a slight ironic smile at the memory. I was a bit worried, jealous maybe, and I hid and listened in. She was trying to recruit him to work for someone. She didn't say much. Marco refused and all but threw her out fairly soon. But I did hear a name of her new employer. She called him Morozoff.

**XXX**

Sarah had been slightly terrified when she realized that with Casey interviewing Mrs. Markovic downstairs, she and Chuck would be left watching the two Markovic children. Not that she thought Casey would have been a better choice. Alex, after all, had been 11 by the time he had become active in her life. She wasn't entirely sure what the composition of Alex Colburn's family was, but she suspected that, even if he had had younger siblings, any lessons he might have learned from watching them had long since been pushed aside and forgotten in favor of types of ammunition and infiltration techniques.

She had never really been around small children. She had been an only child and her extracurricular activities with her father hadn't exactly lent themselves to babysitting. Luckily, Chuck was surprisingly good with them. He claimed he had had a flash, but somehow she couldn't imagine that quite so much of the Disney catalogue had been included in the Intersect, and if it had, she would have thought they would have included it in Russian as well. Despite her own wariness, she had to smile as she watched Chuck try to entertain the siblings.

Chuck was currently kneeling beside the bed in Casey's guest room, with his hands held like pinchers and singing Under the Sea. Despite the fact that Chuck was singing in English, both children still apparently knew the song well enough to sing along in Russian. While they were obviously confused and uncomfortable with being uprooted so suddenly, her boyfriend's slightly awkward bobby and weaving on his knees still elicited a few giggles from the two. The number ended with Chuck attempting to imitate some kind of soft-shoe number while still on his knees and prompted a round of applause from the children, and from her.

Thank you. Thank you. He said, bowing. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. She was more than a little surprised at the performance. She wasn't used to Chuck being quite so much of a ham.

So, what do you want to hear next. Both of the children's faces scrunched up in concentration.

The little girl gleefully asked for a song which's title included something about a kiss. The boy looked less than pleased, but apparently was willing to defer to his little sister's choice. Chuck had to think a moment to realize what the song was in English, then pulled two chairs out to face each other, and turned to her.

"Sarah, you're going to have to help me with this one." He told her.

"What? No. I don't sing." She protested. She was all for keeping the two children entertained, but Chuck could actually sing. She would probably cause them to start crying.

"Relax." Chuck told her as he practically pulled her toward the chair. "All you have to do is sit there, and stare at me adoringly."

"You are completely making this up, aren't you?" She asked. Chuck laughed, then turned towards the kids and gave them a countdown with his fingers. At zero they both began humming a tune that evidently they and Chuck already knew by heart.

Chuck began to sing, with the Markovic children providing occasional back-up. Sarah took back her initial assessment. Chuck wasn't simply able to sing. He was actually really good. So much so that she was pulled into the performance and was slightly startled when the children began applauding again at the end, accompanied by a third set of clapping hands. Turning towards the door, she saw that Mrs. Markovic had joined them sometime during the song.

Thank you, for looking after them. She told them. I can handle it from here. Mr. Casey wanted to speak to you downstairs. Sarah nodded and headed down stairs. While it may have simply been the light, she thought Chuck turned a bit redder as they left the room.

Once they were downstairs, Casey had updated them on the information Anna Markovic provided, and then told them to head back home. Markovic hadn't been able to provide much information beyond what her husband had left for her. In total, it basically amounted to a few overheard conversations, the names of some friends of Marco's which had visited, the periods of time when Marco had acted especially nervous and what goings on at work he had mentioned in vague terms. Among these things, however, had been one really important bit of intelligence. The woman that Anna had seen visiting her home fit the description of Barbara Mazur, the blonde waitress that had infiltrated Federov's rehearsal party. Given the timing of the visit, the person Mazur had been recruiting for was, most likely, the same one who had been making inroads into Kaminsky's business over the last few months. And now they had at the very least an alias to attach to the act.

Devon and Ellie were still at the hospital when they walked home. She and Chuck had grabbed some sandwich makings from the refrigerator and stretched out in the living room to eat before heading to bed. As she was licking the last bit of mayo and pickle juice off her fingers she looked over and realized that despite his antics earlier Chuck seemed oddly somber.

"You were really good with those kids." She told him. While the direct approach to asking Chuck things tended to work, it could sometimes be just as effective to simply get him talking and wait for whatever was bothering him to tumble out. And as long as Chuck thought sharing was his idea he was less likely to reciprocate. She really didn't want him to start asking questions about what she thought of children. Or how familiar she was with Disney.

"Well, I am basically an overgrown child myself." He joked. "And I did Babysit Clara a couple of times."

"Ellie and Devon's daughter?" Chuck shrugged.

"She was still pretty small, but I had already started to get ready for when she was older. I was hoping to be the cool Uncle, you know?"

Sarah felt her heart sink a bit. Sarah knew that during most of the first five years he had been back in time, Chuck hadn't interacted much with the people and events that had happened during that time in the other timeline. Because of that, he had missed how much things had begun to change. Now that he was not only back in Burbank, not only had he realized how many things, big and little, had been shifted by his action, but he had also discovered over the last few months that there were sources out of his control that had begun to alter this timeline. It made sense that he would begin to worry, she realized, that only a matter of time before good things began to disappear along with the bad.

"You'll still be the cool Uncle Chuck." She told him earnestly. A lot of things might have changed in this version of the world, but Devon and Ellie's love for each other hadn't. Sarah couldn't imagine that it would take very long for them to want to extend that to a child once they were married.

"But will it be to Clara? Even if Devon and Ellie do have a baby at the same time, what are the chances that that particular mix or genes would come together at that particular time?"

"Chuck, you can't tell me you won't love any child that Ellie and Devon have." She reminded him.

"Of course I'll love them. But I loved Clara too. I always assumed she would be born, but with everything that's been changed already, what if I accidently erased my niece?" Sarah moved closer to Chuck on the couch. She lifted up his arm and scooted underneath it, wrapping her own arm around his chest and giving him a slight squeeze.

"I'm not an expert on all of this stuff Chuck, but I'm going to guess that Clara, your Clara, is still out there, no matter what happens here." She told him finally. "And you told me yourself that there's a push and pull when you try to change something in this timeline. If something is keeping it so we still have to fight the same bad guys and you still have to listen to Jeff and Lester have the same stupid conversation as in the other timeline, then as far as I'm concerned, it better let you still have your niece." She felt Chuck's muscles loosen a bit. Leaning down he placed a kiss on her forehead.

"Thank you." She pulled herself closer to him.

"I do have a fairly big stake in keeping you from worrying yourself to death." She joked. They sat like that for a few minutes, before she pushed herself up then grabbed his hand and pulled him up as well. He gave her a questioning look.

"We both smell like a combination of airplane, Venezuela hiking trail and sweat." She pointed out.

"Shower time?"

"Extra long shower time."

**XXX**

She didn't know what had woken her up. At first she thought it might be Ellie or Devon coming home, but they weren't exactly good at being stealthy when they came home, no matter how hard they tried. Moving off of the bed, she walked over and peaked out the window. It was still dark out, and when she didn't see anything, she decided to go back to bed. Then she noticed one of the courtyard's shadows moving.

Going over to the bed, she shook Chuck awake and quickly motioned for him to be silent. They both soundlessly pulled on clothes before heading out of their bedroom. Chuck ducked back down the hall to double check that Ellie and Devon hadn't returned home early before meeting her at the front door. Slowly, she turned the knob and opened the door just enough to slip through before the two of them wordlessly separated and blended into the shadows themselves.

Skirting around the few patches of light in the courtyard, she moved behind one of the men. He was completely bald on top but had a well trimmed beard. His gun was held loosely in his hand and she was able to quickly twist his wrist from behind and wrench it loose. Unfortunately he then screamed out in pain. The scream pulled the other two men out of the shadows. Sarah used the hold she already had on the bearded one to her advantage. Using the pain from the hold, she forced him down low enough that she was able to elbow him. Unfortunately he seemed to have a hard head and didn't go down.

Across the courtyard, she saw Chuck moving between a completely bald man and a man with an eye patch. Bearded Guy twisted out of her grasp, and threw a punch. She blocked him easily and kicked him in the gut before he could throw another, then brought her knee up to hit his jaw. Then, for good measure, she punched him once in face. He went down onto the courtyard tiles. Sarah ran over then to where Chuck was taking care of the other two men. By the time she had gotten there, however, the third man was already collapsed against the base of the fountain and Chuck was delivering a final punch to Eye Patch that sent him tumbling over to the ground.

"I should go get some restraints." Chuck whispered. Before they were able to head back to their apartment, a muffled gunshot sounded from inside Casey's.

They both ran towards their partners' door. Chuck gave it a strategically placed kick that sent the door inward. Inside they could hear the sound of a struggle, followed by a loud crash. Moving into the apartment they found a slightly battered looking Casey on the ground. Next to him, unconscious, lay another man covered in shards of pottery. Standing there above both of them was a very angry Anna Markovic.

Nobody waves a gun around my children. She yelled towards the already unconscious man.

**August 16, 2008**

They brought the Markovic's to the Orange Orange the next morning. Sarah swirled out a frozen yogurt for each of them. While they were eating, Chuck, Sarah and Casey went into the backroom to be debriefed by Beckman.

"It appears that Major Casey was correct to take Anna Markovic and her children into protective custody." Beckman told them. "The man who attacked Major Casey was Ivan Fyodorov, he is a mercenary with ties to the Russian gang ORGANIZATSIYA but has been known to work with Volkoff associates before. The three men that Agents Bartowski and Walker discovered in the courtyard were Pierre Lefurgey , Victor Chauvin and Hercule Dupont. They were three of Volkoff's top assassins but were believed to have begun working independently after his disappearance. We now believe they are working for the individual Markovic identified as Morozov."

"And Morozov. Do we know anything about him?" Chuck asked tentatively.

"It's not a name that we're familiar with. Hopefully we'll be able to find out more about him as we work our way through the information Mrs. Markovic provided."

"What about the Markovics?" Casey asked.

"The information Mrs. Markovic provided appears to be legitimate. They should be on their way to their new lives within a few hours." She assured them before the screen went dark.

"I guess it's back to the Buymore." Chuck said. Casey let out a grunt.

"I'll tell the Brady Bunch." Casey said before headed towards the door. Once they were alone Chuck leaned in and gave Sarah a quick kiss.

"Devon and Ellie have the night off, would you want to do something with them?"

"I'm not watching anymore E.R." Chuck frowned.

"When did you watch E.R.?"

"Last week when you and Ellie both had late shifts. Devon did a marathon in the living room. He suckered me in with Ellie leftovers, then he spent the whole time explaining what was going on. In detail." Chuck bit his cheek to hold back a chuckle at the genuine horror that appeared on her face. There were few things in the world that scared Sarah Walker. He couldn't help but think it was cute that spending an evening listening to medical jargon from Captain Awesome was one of them.

"Don't worry, I'll think of something." He assured her.


	10. Chuck and Sarah versus The Mirror PartI

_AN: I think it is safe to assume that the Chuck Comic mini-series takes place in a different universe than the Chuck television show. Given that my story includes different universes bleeding into the one I created, I thought it would be appropriate to have some elements of such a nearby universe bleed in. Which means that this chapter will be both familiar and a bit different for those who read the comic. It does include some of the basic storyline and scenes that were featured in the mini-series. What I thought would be fun tp play with was taking a story that many of us might know already and have seen play out in a universe similar to the original Chuckverse but which Chuck hasn't, so that that many of the changes result from the team being slightly different people rather than Chuck's foreknowledge. _

_Anyway, I hope it isn't boring. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or Wildstorm Comics. I also do not own Disneyland, Indiana Jones, Cinderella or Doctor Who._

Chuck and Sarah versus The Imperfect Mirror Part I

**August 25, 2008**

Chuck spread his feet out wider, trying to get a bit more stability on the rolling surface of the Monorail roof as he moved forward.

Beckman and Graham had contacted the team earlier today. They had gotten information that suggested that the former Fulcrum scientist Dr. Blaine Hecht was planning to meet a contact at Disneyland. Most likely someone from his other former employer, a biotech company from Singapore.

Why he would choose to plan his clandestine meeting at one of the few places on earth that had security covering virtually every square foot, Chuck wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Disney had been more than happy to keep them updated on whether Blaine had been seen on any of their cameras, in hopes of avoiding an incident within the park. Which also meant Chuck was fairly sure they wouldn't be as welcome next time now.

Even with all the preparation, they had only been able to find Blaine as he waited to board the monorail for the meeting. Chuck had raced out of the park to the Down Town Disney Stop in hopes of grabbing both Blaine and his contact. But Blaine had realized he had been compromised as soon as they had begun the twisting loop within the park. He had then tried to escape the only direction he could, up.

The surface of the train's top was smooth and, unlike the train roof he had crawled along during his other timeline trip between Paris and Switzerland, it had no railing around the edge. He was sure if he flashed he would be able to do a complex series of computations that would tell him the best way to advance onto Blain. But he wasn't going to risk even the split second disorientation for it to tell him pretty him more or less what years of experience and his gut had already had: move very slowly and carefully.

"Come get me." Blaine teased. Casey would probably have taken that as a challenge and surged forward to belt the guy. Chuck was more than willing to wait out Blaine's teasing. He knew their stand-off had a limited run. The train would only be within the park for a few minutes before he headed out over a sea of hard asphalt towards the Disneyland Hotel and the tactical support that would be waiting there by now. Blaine was more or less trapped.

Blaine reached behind him and took out a gun he had somehow hidden on himself, cocking it with a click as he pointed it towards Chuck. Wonderful.

"How'd you find me." Blaine asked. Despite being a fellow Stanford Alum, Blaine was not, apparently, the best conversationalist, or, it seemed, especially bright. Chuck bet he was a legacy.

"You're wearing all black in Disneyland in the middle of summer." Chuck pointed out "It doesn't blend in." Blaine scoffed.

"Says the man wearing a fedora in Tomorrowland." Blaine countered.

"If you had called ahead, I would have been able at coordinate my outfit with the location of your scheme." Chuck told him, hoping the banter would distract Blaine while he quietly released the whip he had added to his costume from his belt. "And fedoras are cool."

Chuck forced the flash as he drew the weapon whip back. Years of learning how best to trigger the skills locked in his head combined with far more years of watching Indiana Jones movies as the whip's tip shot out, perfectly snapping around Blaine's gun and pulled it back towards Chuck. Blaine's mouth formed into a grimace, but shifted to a smirk just as Chuck plucked the gun out of air.

"Watch out for snakes." Blaine said smugly before leaping off the car. With the speed the monorail was currently going at, Chuck didn't have time to kick himself over his miscalculation. Instead He forced another flash. He jumped, rolling to absorb the fall before popping up to follow Blaine. He needn't have bothered. Blaine's path was taking him barreling towards a cluster of tourists surrounding what was, in Chuck's bias opinion, the prettiest princess in all the lands.

As Blaine approached the group, she threw out the hand in which she carried the magic wand she had borrowed from her fairy Godmother and Blaine more or less clotheslined with the deceptively thin rod of metal. As Chuck jogged up to the scene he heard murmurs of shock from the crowd, along with a couple of girls exclaiming that they wanted to be that kind of princess when they grew up.

"Sorry folks." He said in an apologetic tone. "We just had a small shoplifting problem. Nothing to worry about." The adults all gave an understanding nod and returned to their normal Disneyland experience. Chuck tried not to think about what that meant about the mentality of the majority of the people he tried to protect every day. While he pulled the unconscious Blaine into a fireman's carry, Sarah waived an overenthusiastic goodbye to the crowd, before heading with him towards the nearest door to the employee only section.

"So, who's going to call Casey to let him know he missed the action?" She leaned in to ask.

**XXX**

John Casey stretched, spreading out along the sand. Beside him Kathleen lay out in a very flattering Bikini. She might not be the girl he had fallen in love with all those years ago, but that didn't mean he didn't find plenty he appreciated looking at. She offered him a smile and raised her umbrellaed drink, which he toasted with a clink from his own beer. A few feet away, Alex was splashing around in the surf. This was the life.

"Casey, wake-up." He turned, blinking, to see Bartowski standing there, backlit by the sun. They were on a deserted Island, where the heck had he come from.

"Casey, wake-up." Bartowski said a bit more forcefully. Casey just growled. "Wake-up!"

John woke up with a start. The beach dissolved into the Buymore home theater room. The real world once again came into focus. Alex was eighteen, not eight and rather than being sequestered on a small desert island, she was about to go off to the land of debauchery known as the college dorms in a less than a month. He and Kathleen had only just become comfortable talking to each other in private again. And, as the Cherry on top of this lovely sundae, he had had to spend the day at the Buymore while his partners were on a mission. Apparently the incident from Alex's eighth grade graduation trip had landed him on Disneyland's equivalent of a "Do not fly" list.

Now that he had gotten his bearings, he realized that morons at the store were at least smart enough to move out of his way and allow him to take a nap during his break in piece. He began glaring around, trying to find what had woken him. As if on cue, he heard the uniquely annoying song he had chosen as Bartowski's ringtone coming from his pocket.

"Tell me I'm getting out of here." He growled to Bartowski without greeting.

"Yes, Casey, you get to leave the horror of the Buymore, for the far better ambiance of Threatmax Prison."

"Leave the quips to me Bartowski." He told him. He didn't bother to wait to hear Bartowski's response before hanging up and heading towards the Vic.

**XXX**

Chuck was standing, arms crossed, in the small area outside the interrogation room. She could practically see the gears in his head turning as he stared through the operation window to where Casey had taken her place interrogating Hecht. She wondered where he was, or if it was even in this timeline.

It wasn't that she thought that Chuck was purposefully keeping something from her. He had learned his lesson on that months ago. But ten years, or even the four years they had known each other before, is a long time to condense into a few weeks of conversations. If Chuck hadn't left out a few details, he would still be talking. But as they had already found out with Cleary and Kincaid, some of the minor details in the other dimensions were becoming far more important in this one.

She moved to stand next to him, and rubbed her hand along his forearm. The motion stirred him from his contemplation. He turned towards her with a slightly apologetic smile. She took the opportunity to disentangle one of his arms and put her hand in his, giving it a slight squeeze.

"Do you recognize him?" She asked. Chuck shook his head, and leaned in closer. Their superiors had deemed Threatmax to be less likely to have a leak than the other CIA facilities in L.A. for obvious reasons. That didn't mean that they could trust that someone wasn't listening.

"No. No flashes." He said lowly.

"What about," She gestured her head up. Sarah wasn't sure that there was a universal gesture for "the other dimension that you used to live in" but Chuck seemed to get the reference and shook his head.

"If there was a mission involving Blaine, I wasn't a part of it." He said with another apologetic smile. He turned back towards the window, watching as Casey yelled at Hecht. She stood with him and gave his hand another squeeze, waiting for him to share whatever was weighing on him.

"Blaine went to Stanford." He said finally. "He worked with Fleming. He was in the Engineering department, even if it was bio engineer." She could already see where this was heading, and decided to interrupt.

"He isn't you. He isn't a misguided, misinformed or twisted version of you. He's done things that you would never do." Chuck opened his mouth to object, but she continued "If you surveyed a thousand different universes, or timelines or whatever you call them I bet you would find one thing that's true in all of them. If there's a Chuck Bartowski, he's a good man that wants to help people. Hecht is only out for himself and he's proved it time and time again."

Chuck bit his lip and stared at her a second as if not sure how to approach the outburst she had just spit out.

"Actually I was thinking that it seems like I should have run into him before either in this timeline or the last. But thank you. Really." He said finally. She gave him an awkward smiled. Chuck tilted her head up slightly, to look into his eyes. "Thank you."

He leaned down slightly, covering her lips with his and pulled her into a kiss. Then he froze. She pulled back slightly and saw him blinking as if coming out of a flash. He gestured slightly with his finger to turn. Once they were no longer facing the window he leaned in again and whispered.

"I flashed on the guard." Sarah felt her eyes widen and reached back as calmly as she could to tell Casey they needed to see him outside the cell. It was already too late.

As if sensing that he had been discovered, the guard whipped his gun around, pistol whipping Casey. Seemingly in slow motion she saw him toss it, along with its ammo over Casey's unconscious body towards Hecht. She ducked down, and Chuck grabbed her, pulling her underneath his own crouched form to shield her from the spray of gunfire, shattered glass and plaster that erupted as Hecht fired into the observation area.

**XXX**

Once Blaine and the guard had passed them, Chuck jumped up and grabbed the one chair in the tiny room. He threw it into the cells doorway to keep it from closing in case the prison went into lock-down and then pushed himself over it to check on Casey.

Chuck knew that Blaine wanted them distracted, not mad, and that meant he and his accomplice were more likely to leave Casey unconscious, but he was still relieved to see his partner already waking up from the hit. The guard had underestimated the amount of abuse Casey's head could take. Considering he had seen Casey head butt a fist before, he wasn't surprised. By the time they had moved out of the interrogation cell, Casey had already shaken off his attempt to help him. That was when the alarm started going off.

When they opened the door to the larger section of the prison, it was chaos. Blaine had opened all the cell doors. For the moment the various inmates were busy fighting with each other, but it would only be a matter of time before they realized that the people who put them in here were currently standing a few feet away.

Chuck heard as the first inmate to run towards them and turned elbowing him. There was a metallic crash and he turned to see that Sarah had kicked in one of the vents. He dove in after her as Casey followed, sending a spray of bullets back out of the vent to drive the inmates away before they slammed it shut again.

The only way out of the prison was up, so they began climbing as soon as they could. They ended up on the top of the gas station convenience store that hid the prison's entrance, with Blaine, the guard and a helicopter. Chuck was starting to get really sick of bad guys taking off in helicopters. He ran toward the thing hoping to catch the still dangling Blaine before it could take off.

He grasped Blaine's feet, but when he looked up and caught a glimpse of the helicopter's other passenger he flashed. He was still slightly disoriented as Blaine kicked at him, and the motion sent him falling back to the roof. Casey tried for another grab but was sent off in the opposite direction. Chuck rolled slightly to avoid the helicopters spinning blades. The goon that Blaine sent after them wasn't so lucky. There was a wet, splattering sound, that created a scene grizzly enough that, even after all these years as an agent, it still caused him to grimace in disgust. From the helicopter Blaine looked down at them with a smug grin and called down.

"Better luck next time." Chuck couldn't help but think that, for a mad scientist, he didn't exactly have the wittiest material.

Sarah had apparently had more luck. The guard that had helped Blaine escape was lying on the roof top, with his visor shattered. Casey immediately grabbed him and dangled him off the roof. Chuck walked over to where Sarah was standing and took her hand.

"On the bright side, as messy as everything was down there, at least we know, more or less, who shot Duncan now." He decided to point out. Sarah gave him a slight nod and squeezed his hand in reply as they both continued to watch Casey attempting to scare information out of the guard. After a moment Chuck leaned down so that only Sarah could hear him.

"Does Casey know that this building is only one story?" A second later Casey pulled out his gun and began to threaten the guard again.

"I think he just realized it."

**XXX**

"Looks like you to better pack your bikinis, looks like we're going to Rio de Janeiro." Casey told them as he dragged the guard back up and along the roof. As he walked away he turned toward the former guard. "And it looks like you are going to be wearing a very familiar uniform for the foreseeable future."

"Casey." Chuck called after him. "We need to debrief. Soon." Casey gave him a curious look before beginning to drag the armored man back toward the door. Sarah looked towards her boyfriend. Usually the mention of her in a bikini would have raised some reaction.

"What's so urgent." She asked. Chuck let out a sigh.

"There was a woman on the helicopter with Blaine. She wasn't someone I had met or heard of in the other timeline, but I flashed on with the old Intersect. Over there, she was affiliated with the Ring, and I would guess is here too. So whatever Blaine is up to is important enough that he was able to not only be absorbed into the Ring when Fulcrum collapsed, but have them willing to stage armed helicopter rescues for him."

The fact that they were willing to do that implied two things. The bad news was that whatever Hecht was working on was not something they wanted in the Ring's hands. The good news was that they obvious didn't have it yet.

Which, on a slightly less dire note, meant that this upcoming mission might end up being longer than expected. Which would mean that they'd have to wait until next month to start Castle's construction, or later. Sarah found herself letting out a sigh as well.


	11. C and S versus The Mirror Part II

_AN: Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed (or favorite or alerted.) I really do appreciate not only the favorable comments, but the constructive criticism as well. Hopefully this chapter is a bit easier to follow._

_Somethings you might want to know:_

_During one chapter of Do Over I referred to Chuck and Sarah having Orange Juice at the Eiffel Tower after a mission._

_In C.A.T. Squad it was revealed that Augustos Gaez was the nemesis of the squad and that he had both a factory in Brazil and a habit of throwing a Carnival celebration in Rio each year._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or Vertigo Comics. _

Chuck and Sarah versus The Imperfect Mirrors Part II

**January 2004**

"Look at that view." Chuck said, slightly in awe. He leaned a little bit over the railing staring out over the city and took another bite of his croissant. When they'd been paired up as partners it had begun to feel as if there was a huge gap that had developed between them. Chuck was still charming in his own awkward way. Sarah suspected Chuck would have to actively try not to be charming. But the tone had changed from flirtation to professional. Or as close to professional as Chuck could manage. Until this morning. He had come into her room and woken her up after only four hours asleep and insisted that they needed to have breakfast at the Eiffel Towers.

She had thought he had meant eating at one of the café's in its shadow. Then he had brought them up to the base of the structure and bought them tickets to go up one of the staircases. The first level where the small, almost fast food like bakery Chuck had plotted out as their breakfast spot wasn't accessible by elevator.

Tired and hungry, she had been what she considered understandably grumpy as they walked up. Chuck, however, had seemed unnaturally awake despite the fact he had been on the stake out just as long as she had. He told her recited facts about the tower, and about Paris. Some sounded like they came straight out of a guidebook. Other's like he had found them out the hard way. He may not be flirty, but he was talking to her like a friend. She could work with being friends. Even if it meant she had to ignore the way her stomach flipped when he flashed her a smile. Of course, all those warm butterfly feelings didn't mean she wasn't going to give him heck for waking her up.

"Nice, yes. Worth having you drag me out of bed after an all night stack out and climb the Eiffel Towers so you can look at it while eating a fast-food croissant? No." Sarah said grumpily. Chuck just flashed her a huge grin.

"But it's the Eiffel Tower Sarah, and not just a croissant. Orange Juice too. Here." He turned towards her tilting the cup towards her to taste. She gave him a glare, but her resolve to be mad at him was already weakening. When he gave her another hesitant smile it collapsed. She still made sure to make a show of rolling her eyes before taking a sip, but it really was very good.

"Plus, it's good for our cover. Mademoiselle Bolivier is supposed to be showing her French Canadian boyfriend around town. What tourist goes to Paris and doesn't go to the Eiffel tower?" He told her. She gave him another glare.

"Come on." He began walking towards the center of the platform and beckoned her to follow. "Let's get you your own orange Juice."

**XXX**

Their mission was to gather information on a woman named Paola Denitov. For almost a week Sarah and Chuck had been observing and evaluating Denitov's routine, as Mademoiselle Bolivier, and her boyfriend. Denitov's favorite dinner spot was a little place called Le Barracao situated on Rue Oberkampf in the 11th. Every night she had left her apartment at 9:30 and headed there with a different dinner companion only to return alone between 2 and 3 AM. They had had dinner there for a couple of the nights, and at places along the way on others, but tonight, they were having a romantic dinner and a bottle of Bordeaux at a restaurant with a good, if discrete, view of her apartment building. They were planning to take advantage of Denitov's absence to search her apartment. With any luck they would be able to find what they needed and be heading back to Washington before tomorrow night.

Chuck held her hands in his on top of the table. Any other male agent would have used their cover as a couple to stick his tongue down her throat. As Chuck stared across at her, pretending that he adored her, she almost thought it would have been better. At least then she'd get to kiss him.

Pulling her hand back she reached into her bag for her compact. A screen replaced the mirror, allowing her to zoom in on the apartment door for a better view.

"Target's on the move." She told Chuck, placing the device back into her bag. He took her hand again and gazed at her. The gaze shifted as soon as Denitov was a few feet past. Afterwards Chuck had quickly paid their bill, and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her flush against him. They looked, or at least they hoped they looked, like a young couple eager to find someplace for a bit of private time, and perhaps willing to sacrifice privacy for it being close. Despite his friendliness earlier, Chuck still felt slightly tense against her, as if he wasn't quite comfortable with how close she was.

They turned into the small dark alley, on the side of Denitov's building. Staring up, she counted the balconies until her eyes reached Denitov's floor then shot the grappling hook up and began to climb. Denitov hadn't left anything in the open. All Sarah found on her desk was a used airline ticket and a receipt for lingerie from Chantal Thomass dated yesterday.

She and Chuck split up and began riffling through the apartment. Yet again, Chuck demonstrated just how different he was from what she expected of a male agent. While only an amateur, theoretically, would think hiding something in an obvious location like an underwear drawer, there was a chance that Denitov either was that green, or was experienced enough to use that perception for her own ends. If you know that someone will skip looking under the bed in favor of more subtle hiding spaces, under the bed suddenly becomes the best hiding space of all.

Most guys Sarah knew, Agent or not, would have started with the underwear drawer. Chuck started by tapping on the walls and examining the paintings. Which was unneeded confirmation of her and the butterflies in her stomach's faith in him. It also meant she had to search the underwear drawer. She did feel a slightly pique of jealousy as she pawed through a collection of La Perla that she would never be able to amass herself outside of a mission. Even with hazard pay and overtime, her government paycheck was more or less eaten up by basic expenses and the money she was putting into savings for the Porsche she wanted.

"Sarah, I think I've found something." Chuck called quietly form across the front room. Sarah shoved all the underthings back into the drawer. She also may have positioned a couple of them so that the next time Denitov opened the drawer the overpriced piece of lace and silk would tear. Just maybe.

When she walked over to Chuck, he was carefully removing one of the room's paintings off the wall. Behind it was a safe. Sarah offered up the device they had been given to crack one, but Chuck deferred. She wasn't entirely sure how he did it, but her partner had an odd knack for cracking the combinations to safes often even faster than the gadgets designed to do so. After just a moment, he opened the door to the safe.

"There's only an envelope." He said with a mixture of surprise and disappointment. Outside the window Sarah heard a car door. She glanced out from between the curtains to see Denitov had cut her evening short, and that tonight she had brought back more than enough company.

"Grab it, Denitov's back and she brought a few friends." She told Chuck urgently.

"We must have tripped a sensor." He murmured as he stuffed the envelope into his suit pocket. Sarah began to feel nervous as he closed the safe door and replaced the painting, but Denitov had only made it as far as the door by the time they jumped off the balcony one after the other, using the grappling hooks and rope to slow their decent.

She couldn't help but be angry at herself for not realizing there would be an alarm. She was even more so when she realized that, for a week's worth of surveillance all they had gotten was an extremely close call and an empty envelope with a broken seal on the back stamped with the word "Buchette".

**August 26, 2008**

Chuck's t-shirt stuck to his chest with sweat. The guard Casey had interrogated revealed that Blaine was scheduled to go to a meeting at the statue The Redeemer outside of Rio de Janeiro. Rio, unlike their last South American vacation spot, didn't seem to care it was supposed to be winter. By the point in the day when they had started the 220 step climb to the statute's base, it was already hot and humid.

"That Guard had better have been telling the truth." Casey grumbled from a few steps below. "I don't give this amount of cardio away without bullets and a fresh target at the end of the line." Chuck sucked in his lips. He decided to hold in all of the jokes Casey's statement had spawned inside his head. He did share an amused looked with Sarah though.

Sarah's method of trying to beat the heat was to wear as little as possible without actually donning the bikini Casey had joked she should bring. He didn't know how, but somehow she made slightly disheveled and covered in sweat look good. She looked like her skin was glistening in the sun .

They trudged up the stairs having a slightly out of breath conversation until they reached the last few feet of stairs. There, at the top was strung a closed for repairs sign. In front of it stood Blaine with two armed guards, the Ring agent he had seen earlier and Paola Denitov.

"So, trap?" Chuck asked rhetorically.

"I guess you really are the brains of the bunch Agent Carmicheal." Blaine attempted to banter. "You three are bit late to see the statue, but you are in time for something every tourist to Rio should do. A helicopter ride over the city. Or, in your case, out of the city."

"You do realize that mad scientists only do the dramatic monologue in the movies, don't you Blaine?" Chuck told him. Blaine glared at him, and Sarah reached up and grabbed Chuck's arm, pulling him back slightly as if preparing to shield him.

He wasn't going to try anything stupid, and he didn't want to start off this whole being a prisoner thing on the wrong foot. It tended to be irritating even on the right foot. But for some reason he wasn't entirely sure of, Blaine annoyed him. He'd like to say it was because he was a traitor, and had made them chase him half-way across the world already, but Chuck had begun to find him irritating even before he had followed him onto the monorail roof.

"Hell Denitov." Sarah said beside him. Her tone was just a bit too dry. Ironically it seemed that Paola was one person that more or less irrationally irritated Sarah. He supposed that should have meant that the two criminals really were a good match.

"Call me Paola, Mademoiselle Bolivier. Yes, I guess we'll always have Paris." Paola responded. "I'm a bit surprised you two are still together. Congratulations."

"That's enough for now ladies." Blaine interrupted. "Rest assured, there will be more than enough time for catching each other up on times old and new during our trip. But we need to get going."

Blaine's goons patted all three of them down, removing all the weapons they had hidden one by one. When Blaine was satisfied that they were unarmed, the two gunmen herded them into the helicopter. Chuck was a bit stumped as to what Blaine had planned for them. If he had wanted simply to kill them, he wouldn't have had to fly them into the middle of the jungle. Chuck couldn't imagine why Blaine would take the risk of bringing three Agents into the middle of his plans, let alone create a complicated trap to do it. Perhaps his jibes towards Blaine were more accurate than he thought, and when Blaine had decided to act out his villainous scheme, he had cast himself as a Bondesque Villain. Despite the uncertainty, and possible upcoming death, the view from the helicopter was beautiful. So was the air conditioning.

As soon as they touched down, Blaine had them file off the helicopter between the now increased group of armed guards. They made their way through the jungle for a few minutes before Blaine stopped in front of a giant tree, with some sort of electronic pad stuck into it.

"The Amazon basin is home to a greater variety of life than any place on the planet." Blaine said, holding his arms out and gesturing as if he was giving a lecture in front of a class, rather than a group of hostages. "The perfect place for the world's most cutting edge biological laboratory, wouldn't you agree?"

"Personally I'd go with somewhere with electricity, but that's just me." Chuck said. Blaine continued speaking as if Chuck hadn't spoken at all.

"But the majority of the life in the jungle is in the canopy." Blaine pushed one of the buttons on the console and suddenly the ground beneath them began to move upwards very quickly. The hidden elevator stopped at the tree tops, revealing several buildings built on stilts. The guards quickly ushered them towards one of the buildings. Inside, lining the walls of the one of the rooms were various jungle animals in cages. As they walked, Chuck could hear Sarah goading Paola behind him.

"Must be tough for you cooped up here in the hinterlands, Paola. I recall your being rather fond of Paris and all its wonders."

"Yes, you seemed to enjoy the city as well. But who could blame you? After all you were in love. I'm so glad for you that the rumors of Charles' death were untrue. I'm sure there are many other people who would be happy to hear the news as well." Worried that the not too subtle threat might provoke Sarah into doing something stupid, Chuck reached back and pulled Sarah closer to him as she glared at Paola.

The guards pushed them into a small metal lined cell. Matching benches ran along three of the sides while the fourth was the cell's sliding door, made of glass. Chuck sat one of the benches beside Sarah. In the climate controlled cell, he was finally able to wrap his arm around her without becoming even more gross and sweaty.

"Start talking." Casey ordered abruptly. "How do you two know Paola?"

"We ran into her on a mission a few years ago in Paris. It was when Chuck and I were partnered after he graduated from the Farm."

"What was the mission?" Casey asked.

"Classified." Sarah said, crossing her arms over her chest. The gesture looked slightly more awkward then Chuck thought she meant it to be since his arm was still around her waist.

"Excuse you?" Casey said.

"You know the drill, Casey." Sarah countered.

"You have got to be kidding me, Walker! We are trapped in the jungle with a man that carries the single most important collection of American intelligence in his head. Tell me everything you know. Now!"

"Sarah, it's not like we can't trust Casey." He said gently. He wasn't sure but he suspected her reluctance stemmed more from a bit of embarrassment over the mission's failure than any actual concerns for protocol. Sarah gave a sigh and gestured for him to speak. They began alternating telling (and sometimes retelling) the events leading up to leaping off that balcony with only an empty envelope to show for almost a week's worth of work.

"The only thing in or on the envelope was a broken seal marked with the word "Buchette." Sarah concluded. To Chuck's surprise, the word immediately caused him to flash.

When he came out of it, Sarah and Casey were turned towards him, waiting for him to speak.

"I didn't have the Intersect with the information when we went on the mission." He explained, hoping that Sarah would understand that what he had just flashed on had only been in the new intersect. "Buchette was the code name for a program sponsored by French-based Interpol in late 2003 to co-opt certain high-level scientists in rogue countries and neutralize controversial areas of emerging technology and research."

"In English Bartowski." Casey told him.

"Bribe scientists to work for Interpol instead of bad men. Get scientists to stop working on big scary tech for bad men. Take away all information on big scary tech."

"Thank you Bartowski." Casey said dryly.

"There was a problem though." Chuck told him.

"Why am I not surprised." Casey mumbled.

"The French neglected to destroy documents related to the neutralized technology."

"Of course they did." Chuck heard Casey groan.

"A Russian free-agent managed to steal the tech cache and was never found. Meaning some rampant technology could be out there somewhere,"

"That's quite a story, Agent Carmichael." Blaine interrupted as he stepped in front of their cell. "Maybe not entirely accurate, but interesting nonetheless. Paola isn't Russian, of course. More at home here in the tropics. "

Chuck's stomach dropped. The moment he had flashed he had realize that what he and Sarah had found in Paris most likely meant Paola was the person who had stolen the tech from the French. But he had held out some hope that she may have only found the envelope, unlikely as it was. While Chuck tried not to imagine the nightmare the Ring now having technology so potentially dangerous France hadn't even tried to reverse engineer it before storing it away, Blaine kept speaking.

"I can't seem to pin you down Carmichael. Your intel on Buchette, is a little too thorough. The French knew one part of it, The CIA something entirely different. Not sure how you managed to put them both together." Blaine said, in a tone that reminded Chuck eerily of Ellie when she talked about her first frog dissection. Blaine then wordlessly walked off, with Paola trailing behind, leaving the three of them alone in their cell.

**XXX**

It took a while to find a way to lie comfortably on the narrow benches. It probably wouldn't have taken quite so long if Chuck hadn't kept moving slightly to make sure that Sarah would be able to use him as a pillow. A part of her thought she should be offended he thought he had to protect her like that. If it was anyone else she probably would have. Most of her just thought his chivalry was sweet, and was glad that she didn't have to lay her head on the cold hard bench. Casey grumbled a bit about their efforts, despite the fact that, contrary to his complaints, they weren't doing anything even approaching naughty, eventually he had just turned over to face the wall and fallen asleep himself.

She wasn't entirely sure how long they had been asleep when Denitov yelled at them to wake up through the cell's glass door.

"What the Hell is going on?" Casey grumbled.

"Paola." Sarah answered him. "We can't trust her, Casey." She warned.

"Listen to me. The people Blaine's working for. I'm afraid of them. They have Blaine putting something together, something big, but he won't tell me what. He won't tell me anything anymore. And the questions they're asking. The way they're studying Blaine's equipment. He doesn't see it, but I know that as soon as he finishes their project they're going to kill us and just take it. "She told them.

"I don't trust you any more than you most likely trust me, but I know you, and right now, I still trust you more than them. I'll cut to the chase. I'm getting you out of here. Go. Now." She told them as she swiped her card through the electronic lock. The door opened with a hydraulic sound. Sarah still didn't trust Denitov. She was more or less convinced that this was some sort of trap. But it was a trap that got them out of this cell, which made it better than just sitting here. And it might even lead them to wherever Denitov had stashed the technology she hadn't turned over to Hecht. Glancing over to Chuck and Casey, she saw that they had come to a similar conclusion. All four of them began running out of the containment area following Denitov's lead.

"This way, around the next corner. We'll cut through the lab." Denitov yelled back at them as they approached the end of one of the corridors. "Agent Casey, take this." To Sarah's surprise, Denitov tossed Casey a gun. She herself had already grabbed a knife along the way.

Denitov slide her card and the door opened revealing a gray room lined with monkey filled cages.

"What goes on in here?" Chuck yelled to Denitov.

"I was hoping you could tell me." Chuck slowed down a moment, looking at the cages, before speeding back up to meet them as they reached the door.

Once they exited the final door, they found themselves running straight into the jungle.

"Casey, company." Chuck yelled towards their partner as they ran. Sarah glanced back and saw that a leopard was coming up behind them. Casey shot at it using the gun Denitov had given to him as they all began to run even faster.

"Up ahead. Maybe it's a way out of here." Sarah said, gesturing towards a small break in the foliage.

"Paola, you've been living here, don't you know the way out?" Chuck asked from slightly behind her.

"I didn't get out much." Denitov said, more than a little out of breath. Running through the small opening she had indicated they all stopped short and froze. In front of them stood almost every predator she could imagine lived in this jungle, and a few she wasn't sure did. They were all standing there, in wait, looking more like some sort of carnivore diorama then an actually rain forest scene.

"Through here. There's another way out. Hurry." Paola said, pointing to a barely perceivable trail.

"Oh, now she remembers." She thought she heard Chuck mumble.

"You have to trust me. But whatever you do," Paola told them before cutting off abruptly. They all froze again. They were standing on the edge of a sheer cliff. Below them was a long drop to the river below.

"Don't look down." Sarah said, finishing Paola warning. Sarah wasn't afraid of height, but even she felt a little dizzy as she contemplated what they were about to do. She looked toward Chuck. He gave her a tense smile and held out his hand. She took it and gave him a little squeeze. Then she took a deep breath and they both jumped.

They hit the water fairly hard, causing her to lose Chuck's hand. She kicked her way to the surface, gasping for breath. Her first thought was to look for Chuck, and saw him a few feet away doing the same. They both then looked and saw that Casey and Paola were emerging from the water as well. Paola began swimming towards a boat that was approaching them. Paola pulled herself up onto the boat with the help of two men in black t-shirts and pants. Chuck offered Sarah a little push and she pulled herself onto the boat before turning and helping him up in turn. Casey climbed aboard last.

Paola began speaking to the two men in Portuguese. Despite her former nemesis Augustos Gaez being based, at least partially, in Brazil, she had never had to learn the language. She looked towards Chuck. He was soaking wet from the unplanned swim and his clothes were plastered to his skin so that they looked more like they were painted on. Judging by the way he seemed distracted, she suspected what she was wearing was now similarly revealing. When she nodded, subtly towards Paola, however, he did understand her meaning and walked up beside her. He linked their arms and leaned down so that only she could hear him, as he made the familiar face that meant he had flashed.

"She's telling them that we're one of them now." He said, pausing slightly. "She thinks that Blaine will be coming after us any minute." He stopped again listening. "She's says they need to hurry if we're going to make the helicopter out of Sao Paulo." Sarah glanced off into the now setting sun. Somehow she didn't think that Paola was going to be flying them home.


	12. C and S versus The Mirror Part III

_AN: Thanks as always to everyone who reviewed (or favorite or alerted). _

_Here are some things that you might want to know:_

_In Anniversary Chuck is shown to have a plaid comforter with matching lamps. _

_The first transatlantic helicopter flight was made by from July 15-31, 1952 by __Capt. Vincent H. McGovern and 1st Lt. Harold W. Moore. They flew from Westover, Mass., to Prestwick, Scotland (3,410 mi). The trip included five stops, and had a flying time of 42 hr., 25 min. _

_According to Wikipedia, the plural of Real, the currency of Brazil, is Reais. _

_I have never been snowboarding and any comments on skiing or snowboard contained within this chapter are based on information from the internet. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or Vertigo Comics. I also do not own Alias or Batman._

Chuck and Sarah versus The Imperfect Mirrors Part III

**August 28, 2008**

At Sao Paulo he, Sarah and Casey had just had a few minutes outside of Paola and her men's hearing to decide whether or not they should go with her or attempt an escape. They had made the decision to follow Paola into her helicopter in order to find her base of operations and hopefully a bit more about what had happened to the information she had stolen. But they hadn't anticipated the flight would take them out of the country, much less off of the continent.

Chuck hadn't known that you could fly a helicopter from Brazil to Switzerland. After having spent the last thirty-six hours crammed into the small space, he still couldn't understand why you would want to. They all piled out of the thing only to realize that the climate here was the complete opposite of what they were dressed for. If Rio didn't realize it was supposed to be in Winter, it appeared that the area of the Swiss Alps where Paola' s hideaway was didn't realize it was supposed to be its summer. Snow covered the ground, reflecting up the mid-morning sun.

"I'm sure you'll all find it easy to rest up here. As my guests." Paola told them.

"Guests? Really? Then if you don't mind I should probably call the office. Let them know we're taking a little ski holiday." Sarah snapped back. Being cooped up together for the last day and a half hadn't exactly made Sarah any less irritated by Paola.

Chuck walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close in an effort to calm her and help both of them stay warm for the walk up to the Chateau .

"I'm afraid the Chateau has no phone or internet service. The better to be a true refuge from the troubles of the modern world." Or, Chuck thought, a very posh prison for three American spies. Unfortunately, they weren't exactly outfitted for the climate, and the Chateau appeared to be the only building for miles, so even if they wanted to, they couldn't really make an escape now.

"What about Blaine, won't he be coming after us?" Casey asked.

"Perhaps. But if he does, I think he'll find that were more than ready to deal with him." She said with a smile. She turned around then, unlocking and opening the double door theatrically. "Blaine has his exotic creature for protection, I have mine."

Standing in front of them was a line of women all wearing skimpy black outfits. His arms were still around Sarah and he gave her a little squeeze, looking at her nervously. A jealous Sarah tended to be a distracted and slightly angry Sarah, and far more dangerous to him and others than Paola's entire army of Amazons undoubtedly was.

"Ladies, say hello to our guests," Paola announced. "John Casey, Sarah Walker, and," Chuck quickly interrupted.

"Charles Carmichael." He didn't like the idea of Paola knowing his current alias, or being able to connect Irving Charles with Charles Carmichael, but it was better than having an entire room of unknown and most likely criminal women find out that Agent Charles was still alive.

"Hi Charles." The women chorused. Chuck took another nervous glance towards Sarah and slipped his arm from around her waist, so that he could grab her hand, interlacing their fingers.

"Thanks for the hospitality, but we better focus on Blaine. What the hell was he up to back in the jungle?" Casey asked.

"All in good time, Agent Casey." Paola told him.

"Major Casey, actually." Casey corrected with a growl.

"My apologies Major Casey. We can discuss it over lunch. Ladies if you'll escort our guests to their rooms, they can freshen up and change before lunch."

As soon as Paola had left them alone in their room, he and Sarah headed to the bathroom. Sarah turned the shower on and in hopes it would allow them to talk without worrying they would be overheard by whatever bugs Paola had inevitably placed in their room.

"Should we try to explore now, or wait until tonight." He asked as loud as he dared over the water.

"We'll have more time tonight, if we don't show up at lunch Paola will know something is up." Sarah reasoned.

"And if we do she might just poison us." He pointed out.

"No, she wants something. She won't kill us until either she gets it or she has to." Chuck nodded.

"Tonight then." He agreed. Sarah glanced towards the shower a second, then back at them.

Then she began stripping down and shifted the shower dial to hot before stepping in. Chuck peeled off his now very ripe clothes and followed. The hot water felt incredible after everything they'd been through in the last two days. Grabbing the soap he began lathering up Sarah's back. He worked his hand down and started to try to knead out the knots formed on the long flight. As he reached her lower back they both suddenly froze.

"We probably shouldn't do anything more than get clean inside an evil shower, should we?"

**XXX**

When they made their way out of the bathroom, Sarah decided to check the closet in hopes of finding something that didn't smell like sweat and Jungle river water. Inside was a dress in her size similar to those she had seen the other girls wearing and a suit for Chuck. Not exactly the kind of clothes they would be able to escape in, but still better than putting back on their Rio wear. Paola had even left them underwear. Which was slightly creepy considering that meant Paola had somehow gotten to know her bra size. All other things aside, Chuck did look rather dapper in his suit through.

When they made their way to the dining room, Casey was already there.

"Where the heck have you two been?" He asked. Chuck pretended to sniff the air around their partner before scrunching up his nose.

"You really didn't take a shower, did you?" Casey glared.

"I hope you're hungry." Paola said, opening the dining room's double doors. "Lunch is served." Inside, Sarah was surprised to find Paola's security-women were also sitting down at the table.

"I thought you said we'd be discussing Blaine over dinner. Don't you think that's better done in private?" Casey said, voicing her own thoughts.

"My girls are like family." Paola said smoothly. "I trust them with my life. I suggest you do the same."

Paola spaced the three of them around the table with her security seated in between. In the interest of keeping Paola happy and, hopefully, chatty Sarah reluctantly allowed herself to be seated to Paola's right while Chuck was placed down the table on the other side. One of the few men she had seen in the Chateau delivered their food. At this point she suspected cardboard would smell good, but she couldn't help but remember Chuck's concern as she picked up her silverware. Looking over towards the others at the table, she didn't see any difference in the dishes between what was served to her and the others. She and Chuck shared a look over the table, and he gave her shrug and took a bite. Taking a breath she did the same.

**XXX**

Chuck made his way through the vents towards the sounds of Sarah fighting. He knew that thwack anywhere. When he reached the opening in the hallway closest to Paola's room he saw his girlfriend sliding a knife into the door handles, presumably to lock Paola in.

The meal hadn't killed them, but afterwards Paola had separated them. Two of the girls had gone to show Casey the weapons room. While Sarah had gone with Paola, he'd been escorted back to their room. All that Paola had told them about Blaine's work at lunch was that it he had been working on some sort of cloning project so when she invited Sarah for a private meeting in her room Sarah had given him a meaningful glare not to interfere.

He had been brought back to their room to find it filled with half a dozen scantily glad women. He still didn't like fighting women, and he really hadn't wanted to fight an entire roomful should it turn out it was a trap. So after awkwardly telling them he had a girlfriend he made his way to the bathroom and locked the door. After a few minutes he decided it was as good a time as any to begin exploring the house, and headed up the vent. He had only made it a few feet before the acoustics in the ventilation system carried along them the sound of a fight, and he began to head towards it.

After looking out of the vent opening, and making reasonably certain Sarah was alone he called out to her.

"Sarah." She looked around a moment before her eyes fell on the vent. He gave her a little wave that she returned. She then moved towards the opening. Sarah pried the grating off and he helped pull her in before heading in the opposite direction from the one he had come from.

They eventually found Casey attempting to recreate the axe scene from The Shinning on one of the Chateau's doors. Casey had managed to steal the keycard of one of the guards sent with him after lunch. When Chuck flashed on the card, he was able to get the layout of the Chateau. Based on that they decided to head towards the computer hub. According to the plans he had flashed on Chuck should be able to control the Chateau's security from the hub. Since the hub was two floors down, they decided to leave the vents and attempt to get to one of the staircases. As they were sneaking down one of the halls, however, they heard two male voices.

"But Blaine said to dismantle it once the final stage had been reached. Which should have been an hour ago." One of the men said.

"And I'm still waiting for Paola to call and confirm that. Maybe something happened. But you could always go ask him yourself. He's just down the hall." The other one countered.

So Blaine was here, along with whatever he had been working on. In fact, he probably had been here even before they had arrived and Paola knew it. Suddenly the various questions about Paola, their odd rescue and her current plan coalesced into a realization in Chuck's mind. They had been the distraction.

All of the CIA and NSA's information had indicated that Blaine had been meeting with representatives from the lab he had worked for right after he had completed his dissertation at Disneyland. That, perhaps, had been correct. What had happened at the jail wasn't a rescue or an extraction but an abduction. Once the Ring had realized that Blaine was stuck somewhere they could get to him, they had moved in and grabbed him. Blaine had taken them to his lab for the same reason they had followed Paola, because it got him out of a cell. It may or may not have been The Ring that used the guard to set the trap for him, Sarah and Casey, but Blaine had certainly used it to his advantage. Blaine had arranged for Paola to help them escape and while the Ring agents at his little jungle base had been looking for them, he had slipped away to go to his secondary lab here.

The reason for their rather unique and time consuming choice of escape transport was not just to throw the Ring off of their trail, but to make sure that Blaine would have enough time to use his lab before they arrived. Also, Chuck realized, it would mean that if the Ring did catch up to them, not only would Blaine have already had the time to empty his lab, but he would have three American agent there to take care of his enemies for him.

It only took a few seconds for all three of them to decide they needed to try and stop Blaine. Quietly they made their way towards the door the guards had indicated during their argument. Sarah used a gadget to listen in at the door and once she had given the all clear Casey swiped the card he had stolen and they ducked inside.

The inside of the room looked like something out of a science-fiction movie completely with some sort of human sized pod. The grey metal aesthetic was marred somewhat by Blaine's body lying on the floor in a large crimson pool of his own blood, dead. Looking away from the grisly sight, Chuck's eye caught on a computer terminal on the other side of the room.

"Sarah, do you still have that mini-camera on you?" he asked, turning towards her.

"This isn't the time for a photo op, Bartowski." Casey told him.

"Blaine dragged us half-way across the world, twice, and was killed for whatever was in this room. I don't know about you but I want to know as much about it as possible." Chuck countered. Casey grumbled but stepped back over Blaine's body so that he was in a better position to guard the door. Sarah wordlessly pulled out the tiny camera she had carried with her and began snapping pictures of the equipment.

Their cover as they had climbed up to the base of The Redeemer had been as tourists. As such he had carried with him a wallet filled with a Fake I.D., reais and a little toy that Manoosh had given him to test months ago but which he had not yet had the opportunity to use in the field. It was a high capacity USB drive with various bits of software and hardware meant to increase its upload and download speed exponentially. At least that was the theory. Chuck just hoped that Manoosh's claim that it was water-proof was accurate. Sticking the device in, he began to attempt to download the information from the lab's computer.

At first it appeared to be working as planned, but even before the download was half-way done, Chuck realized that something was wrong. Moving over to the other terminal, he quickly discovered that a not very subtle virus had been eating away at the lab's server since before they had even finished lunch. Most likely it was some sort of failsafe Blaine had installed to prevent his work from being stolen, and had been triggered inadvertently by whoever had killed Blaine. Chuck could only hope that there was enough uncorrupted data left that they could figure out what Blaine had been up to.

"Bartowski." Casey called gruffly. Chuck looked up from the terminal and realized that Paola's women were now banging on the door.

"Just a second." He said. Chuck hurried back over to the other computer. He stopped the download and pulled the drive out then looked around quickly, thinking back on the floor plan he had seen when he had flashed on the stolen security badge.

"Vents?" He suggested, pointing upward. Sarah gave a nod. Casey gave a shrug. Chuck knelt down and laced his fingers together, forming a perch for Sarah to step up on in order to remove the grating and pull herself back into the ventilation system. He followed, jumping and pulling himself up. Casey was last. He had just pulled his foot back up through the opening and replaced the grate when the girls finally made it through the door into the room.

**XXX**

Despite it being used as a lab by Blaine, Paola, it seemed, couldn't resist taking advantage of the fact that the Chateau's location allowed for both winter and summer skiing. Chuck had used the floor plan he had flashed on earlier to find a route to the equipment room. There they had found, winter gear and skiing and snowboarding equipment and weapons.

All three of them chose to use snowboards. She and Casey so that they would have their hands free to shoot. Chuck for maneuverability. He still didn't want to actually use one of the guns. Instead he forced a flash on maps and satellite photos of the terrain. The way he described it, information flashes, unlike skill flashes didn't fade. Remembering one was more like remembering something he had read. He promised her that that meant that he could keep the maps in mind, even as he used the Intersect's snowboarding skill program to make his way down the mountain and that he would be use the terrain against Paola and Blaine's men and women.

They were about halfway down the mountain when Paola's girls began to shoot at them. A few minutes later Blaine's men joined in. She and Casey separated, each taking a group and trying to hit or topple their respective targets. When she had a slight break she looked over towards Chuck and saw that, slightly to her surprise, his plan was working. Maybe even a bit too well for his taste, she suspected. One side of the run they were heading down ended in steep drop off. She watched as Chuck made a sharp turn a few feet away from the edge, knowing Chuck, he had hoped the move would make the man following him slow down, or force himself to fall into the snow in order to stop. Instead the man flew right past the point at which Chuck had turned and then off the cliff.

Eventually Chuck joined back up with her and she was able to lean against him so that she could turn around fully and shoot at Paola and her guards. The move not only took out the remaining two girls, but allowed her to hit Paola and cause her to crash into a tree.

At the bottom of the mountain they found a small compound composed of a couple of quonset huts and a few trucks manned by a guard in Blaine's employ. It was surprisingly easy to neutralize them, however, and afterwards She, Chuck and Casey had been able to get to the compounds communication equipment to contact Beckman. She gave them directions to an area where they could be extracted.

As they piled into one of the trucks, Chuck kept looking back towards the mountain.

"I don't think they'll be coming for us." She told him.

"Why?" He asked, surprised.

"Hecht and Denitov were using mercenaries. Hecht we know is dead, and that dive Walker made Denitov take into a tree probably knocked her out, and may have killed her. With no one left to pay them, they don't have a reason to follow us." Casey explained quickly. "Now get in the truck."

******August 29, 2008**

Chuck stared at the wall in front of him, trying to decide where in the web of multi-colored cards and strings to place it the card he was currently holding. It wasn't, perhaps, the smartest idea to write out everything he knew about the future and the various bleedovers from other dimensions, let alone make them into a giant wall-sized chart. But even the Intersect needed a bit of help keeping something so complex straight and as his girlfriend readily admitted, Sarah did even more. So, not long after he had told Sarah his secret, they had begun to create a chart of this timeline, the other timeline, all the differences between them and all the things that didn't fit in either on a wall in his father's Batcave in Encino.

Last night after a truck, helicopter and a plane ride, he, Sarah and Casey finally made it back to Burbank. He and Sarah had gotten a bit of sleep on the plane, but it had still been a welcome relief to be able to come back to their apartment and collapse onto their own bed. This morning had come far too soon. His alarm had gone off at seven, reminding him that he had not only his shift at the Buymore this morning but also was scheduled to cover Skip's and Anna's shifts, since they had both covered for him while he was "playing hooky" over the last few days.

After peeling himself off the bed and taking a disappointedly lonely shower he had headed to the strip mall to herd his nerds. He had been in the middle of explaining the difference between water resistant and water proof to a customer who couldn't understand why his camera had stopped working when he got the call from Beckman. After passing the customer onto Lester, Chuck had headed over to the backroom of the Orange Orange.

Beckman and Graham had revealed what they had been able to determine from the information he had downloaded. Unfortunately he had been correct in his initial assessment. Most of the data had already been corrupted by the virus Blaine had built into his computer. Even with some of the best people they had trying to reconstruct the data, they still hadn't been able to get much.

On the plus side, they didn't think that whoever had killed Blaine had gotten much either. Not enough, at least, to replicate the Blaine's equipment and process.

On another plus side, in exchange for information on Paola, the French had allowed them access to the information they still had on the tech they believe she had stolen. By comparing that with what he had downloaded, Beckman and Graham believed they knew what Blaine was attempting to do.

Blaine had created a device that would take DNA from a donor individual and splice it into a recipient in order to give the recipient the physical attributes of the donor. His device made someone into a duplicate of someone else. Like on Alias.

Chuck's first thought, after wondering if Graham was joking, was that this technology had to have been created by an intrusion from another reality because there was no way the Universe as he knew it in this timeline, or the one he had left would have created something like that.

Sarah's first thought, in contrast, was to ask if it possible that Hecht used the technology to fake his own death. If the man they had found may not have been Blaine. Beckman had told her no.

While they had only been able to reconstruct a percentage of the data from Blaine computer, they had determined that Blaine had used the machine twice before his death and that, while they hadn't had enough of a DNA profile to identify who had been the machines test subjects, they had been able to determine that the DNA donors and recipients were all female.

After the debriefing, he and Sarah had decided that they would meet at the house after he finished up his final shift. By the time he had arrived in Encino it was nearly ten. Sarah had been standing in front of their wall, with take-out from Bamboo Palace and a new package of color coded index cards.

So far they had come up with a rough timeline of when everything leading up to their most recent mission more likely had to happen.

Sometime between when he had caused this timeline to split off in fall of 2001 and when Interpol had finished collecting technology to be neutralized in winter 2003 someone had either discovered the schematics for something similar to Blaine's machine on a computer at the site of an intrusion or had actually received a memory about the technology from another reality.

They had tried to use this information initially but when Interpol had then determined that the technology wasn't something they wanted anyone to get a hold of, they had somehow been able to give up the technology to Interpol. Then Paola had stolen the information from Interpol and given it to Blaine, who had combined it with his own research and other stolen technology to form what they had found in the Chateau.

At some point The Ring had found out about it, and decided to abduct Blaine to get it. He had tried to give them the slip only to be confronted by someone, maybe even someone from the Ring, at Paola's Chateau. They had had Blaine use the machine twice. As a test to make sure the equipment worked, maybe. Then they had killed him and tried to take the information from his lab, only to trigger the virus he had installed. But they still couldn't answer what had originally been sent over via the bleedover, whether the original "inventor" would be able to create something similar or who was now walking around with someone else's face.

Behind him, Chuck heard a slight snort. Turning around he saw that Sarah had fallen asleep on the small couch they had dragged down here. He smiled slightly. Sarah continued to refuse to admit that she snored. Taking one last glance at the board, he finally stuck the final card into a small, blank, niche somewhere during 2002. Without being able to contact his father, they would simply have to wait until they had been given more information by the NSA or CIA before they could answer their remaining questions. Walking over to Sarah he leaned down, and scooped her up, careful not to wake her. He gently walked with her up out of the basement, and hit the light switch with his elbow, closing the basement door before bringing her to his old room.

Laying her down on his childhood bed, he debated, briefly, whether or not he should lie down next to her. She sleepily reached out and grabbed his arm mumbling something about Orange Juice and he realized he didn't really have a choice. He quickly took off as much of his clothing as he could manage with only one free arm, and lay down next to her, snuggled up beside her on top of the slightly worn plaid comforter.


	13. Chuck versus The Change of Base

_AN: I'm sorry for the long delay. I had originally envisioned this "episode" as being two chapters (the first of which would have been posted earlier) but when I got to the point I was going to split it at I realized it would be slightly cruel to leave you with the cliff hanger I envisioned if I didn't have the second part ready to go up relatively soon. So I just kept writing and, well, ended just making it one big chapter. Hopefully it was worth the wait._

_Disclaimer: I do not own Chuck or Alias._

Chuck versus The Change of Base

**September 8, 2008**

Chuck ducked slightly keeping out of sight as much as possible. Slinking around the corner, he pressed his back to the wall, hoping that his pursuer would pass him by without stopping. Finally, as he maneuvered his way around one last corner he saw his exit. He would have to be out in the open for a few feet. Glancing around, carefully, he waited until there was an adequate distraction then made a run for it. Once he was three or four rows deep into the parking lot he finally slowed down and breathed a sigh of relief. Big Mike had been unusually vigilant about his employee's breaks since back-to-school shopping season had started with the first of September. As well intentioned as Big Mike might be, there was no way Chuck was going to let him interrupt his lunch time ritual. Especially since, for the last week, it had been more or less the only time he had gotten to see Sarah.

After their return from the Alps, construction on Castle had finally started. Unfortunately that meant that Sarah had had to stay at Castle and supervise the construction every night this week.

Chuck wound his way through the parking lot, glancing back every few moments to make sure that Lester or Jeff hadn't tattled to Big Mike about his little excursion, before eventually making it to the Orange Orange without incident.

As he walked through the doors to the shop a tiny bell rung announcing his arrival. Chuck wasn't sure if the bell had been added for extra authenticity or as a primitive early warning system. Probably a bit of both. At the sound, Sarah looked up at him with a slightly weary smile. He walked over towards the register, and he leaned over, meeting her lips with his over the counter.

"I missed you last night." He told her after they pulled away. Sarah grimaced slightly.

"It was so late by the time they packed up for the night it didn't seem worth it to drive back home when I'd only to have to turn right around and come right back to open the store." She told him. Hearing the frustration in her voice he realized that as much as he might want to complain about the situation, he needed to be the optimistic one right now.

"At least when this is done we'll have a nice shiny new base." He reminded her, then added with a slight smile. "With some nice lockable closets." She answered with a coy smile of her own, and they leaned in again for another short kiss. Then another.

"That will be nice." She breathed, between kisses. She sounded exhausted. Leaning back slightly he realized that she had shadows underneath her eyes.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" He asked, slightly concerned.

"An hour or so in the back room." Chuck frowned slightly and she added, "Alex is coming in this afternoon. I'm going to go back to the apartment and get a few hours sleep before I have to come back tonight." Alex was slowly packing up for her big move later this month. Chuck doubted she would be able to relieve Sarah for very long, or that Sarah would let her. The fact that she had asked Alex to come in at all probably was indicative of just how little sleep Sarah had been getting since the Construction had begun. Truthfully, he hadn't exactly been sleeping very well himself without her there.

"Maybe I can have an onsite install this afternoon." He said. She just chuckled.

"I think that would sort of defeat the purpose of returning the apartment to rest." She pointed out with a smile, then leaned in again for yet another kiss. This time he rested his hands along her neck, pulling her in for a deeper kiss. At some point he thought he heard the tiny bell on the door ring again, but was too wrapped up in his girlfriend's lips to really think about. Eventually they were interrupted by the sound of someone behind him very purposefully clearing her throat. Chuck glanced over and realized with some embarrassment that it was an actual customer. He pulled away and gave the woman a slightly bashful smile before turning back towards Sarah.

"I guess I'll just have my usual." He said. Sarah flashed her own bashful smile towards both him and the customer, before turning to swirl out the yogurt. "Could you make one for Casey too." He added as she began scooping on his toppings. "He's wound pretty tight right now." Sarah gave him a knowing smile. Casey might be enjoy his time between missions more in this timeline, but that didn't mean that a week with no sign of any gun play didn't begin to grate on him. Sarah finally handed him the two yogurts, and he snuck a final peck on the lips before heading out. He tried to ignore the glare from the woman that had interrupted them as he navigated out of the store balancing a yogurt in each hand.

He found Casey, unsurprisingly, in the large appliance section. Casey growled slightly as Chuck handed him the yogurt, a sound Chuck chose to interpret as the Casey equivalent to thank you. Once Chuck had gotten back to the Nerd Herd desk he glanced over towards large appliances again and smiled slightly with amusement when he saw Casey tucking into the yogurt.

Chuck had been dealing with customers for just over an hour when his phone rang. Looking down there was simply a text.

"Get to the airstrip ASAP. Will brief in flight." Chuck glanced over towards Casey who nodded toward the door and the Orange Orange and Chuck headed out to grab Sarah.

**XXX**

"Earlier today a fire alarm was triggered automatically from inside of Leeryder Industries main facility. The alarm was patched directly into the nearest fire department. When they arrived, they discovered the building had gone into a total lockdown. Nothing could get in or out. In order to help determine what they were dealing with, they eventually conducted an aerial infrared scan. There was no fire. More disturbingly, there were no heat signatures to suggest any of the employees were inside, despite the fact that none of the employees' families have been able to contact them. Not even those of the two founders of Leeryder." Beckman told them once they were in the air.

"As bizarre as this seems General, what is our stake in this?" Casey asked.

"Leeryder finances its research by selling cutting edge weaponry to the highest bidder. We have no idea what may have triggered the building lockdown, but it may well be a biological weapon, radiation or other toxins. Even without considering the technology Leeryder may have on site, we can't risk someone attempting to steal the weapon information inside and letting the contaminate out." Graham ground out.

"You will be meeting a local hazmat team. They will be setting up a portal decontamination unit outside your entry point and you will be given containment suits. We need to determine what happened and bring any dangerous materials or weapons to a secure location."

"What about the local authorities? Or the European agencies? Aren't they going to want to deal with this?" Chuck interjected.

"One of Leeryder's founders and many of their employees are American. And for some reason, the other agencies don't seem to have a problem with us sending our agents into the building first." Beckman said, with a sarcastic quirk of her lip. "If the area proves not to be contaminated, or you find something particularly interesting, that may change. That means, this may be your only chance to examine what's inside the building. So be quick, be careful and be thorough." With that cheerful thought, both of their bosses left them alone to plan.

**September 9, 2008 (Local Time)**

The suits were designed to block radiation, disease and whatever else could be inside. They were also cumbersome and heavy. A small little boy part of him couldn't help but geek out at the fact they bared a certain resemblance to space-suits. Then that little part of him realized that he was about to enter a building filled with an unknown contaminate that most likely killed all the people inside and it ran away and hid under its metaphorical covers.

They used a laser to burn through the doors, making sure to keep the opening contained with the make-shift decontamination area. Part of the lockdown procedure was to stop any experiments currently running, and inside was eerily quiet. Aside from a few scattered papers and overturned dishes, everything seemed in place, as if the workers were coming back at any moment. But there were no people, and no bodies. The only thing out of place were the small piles of ash that were scattered through the rooms, and the occasional scorch mark. Otherwise the building looked like it was in the middle of a fire drill.

The plan was to head to the main computer room and hopefully find a record of what had caused the lockdown. Along the way they were to take samples of the air and anything else that was suspicious. Something about the ash piles tickled at the back of Chuck's mind but he couldn't remember why. He still suggested they take separate samples from a few to test.

Once they reached the server room he was infinitely glad that they had thought to modify his suit to give him extra dexterity. He might be good with computers, but even he would have trouble hacking into the system by hunting and pecking in oven mitts.

Once he had gotten in to the system he found himself staring at the screen, dumbfounded.

"What is it Bartowski? I know this is nerd nirvana but our air packs give us a limited timeline." Casey groused. Chuck shook off his shock and attempted a couple of other ideas before he had finally run out of ways he knew to explore the servers.

"There's nothing here." He said, still befuddled. "All of the data's been chomped on by a virus. K. K. virus. Sort of. All that's left is bits and pieces and the virus itself. "

"You mean that kid we saved back in July did this?" Casey said, anger rising in his voice.

"No, no. It's been modified. It would take me a while to figure out exactly how, but Beckman gave me a copy of K.K.'s code after our run in with the Ring on our last mission. They wanted to make sure it really was a failsafe, and the Ring wasn't trying to throw us off." He told him.

"How long will it take?" Sarah asked carefully.

"Too long." Chuck told her simply. "I'll download it and look at it later. According to the maps here, there's another server room on one of the upper floors that didn't show up in our schematics. Maybe that one wasn't infected." He suggested.

While he downloaded what was left of the servers onto a specially designed drive, Casey and Sarah looked around a bit more. They still only came up with more of the same. Nothing out of place, and no people. It was the same as they walked towards the second server room.

At first Chuck thought it too had been infected by the virus. But once he poked around a bit he realized, to his shock, that was not the case. There was no virus. All of the multi-teraflop machine, all of that space and computing power of this second bank of servers had been designed only to run one program. It was designed to run only that one program.

"Anything?" Sarah asked.

"The room wasn't a back-up for the one downstairs. It's all to run a piece of equipment in the next room, from what I can tell." He told her, still not sure what could require so much computing power to run. Then, a thought occurred to him, and he, slightly warily, walked over and opened the door to the room beyond.

He went in only a few feet, and stood there, frozen and staring. Casey and Sarah walked in behind, staring as well, as if they were trying to figure out what was before them, or simply why it fascinated him.

On the left of the room was a server. It wasn't large, only a fraction of what Castle would have. If this machine was what he thought it was, then the operators must be routinely manually transferring anything stored on it to the room downstairs. There was no way it would be able to hold everything it would need to otherwise.

On the other side of the room was a chair that looked eerily like the one that had been used on him in Thailand, complete with wires ending in electrodes hanging limply over one of the arms.

In the center was a contraption that would best be described as looking like some unnatural mating of a coat rack, one of those outdoor heaters they have at restaurants and a mechanical tree. It was attached by a thick rope of cable to both the chair, the server and the room behind them.

It wasn't like the machine that had brought him back. That would be like saying that ENIAC was like the Roark 7, or perhaps more accurately that ENIAC was the same as a cutting edge computer produced in fifty or even a hundred years. But there was enough of the backbone of this contraption in that machine that his engineering eye could see that it was its ancestor.

"So, all that's for a chair?" Casey asked disbelievingly.

"I don't know." He told Casey. "I guess." Telling the lie to Casey made guilt weld up in his gut, but they had a limited time they could stay inside the building in their suits, and none of it was delegated to explaining why he had a fair idea what the chair was for.

He still couldn't help but stare in shock at the device that, only this morning had been purely a hypothetical contraption to him. His father had been right. Leeryder had found a way to control the intrusions, or at least channel them. And they weren't simply storing them on a server; they must be downloading information into people. It wasn't like the Intersect, which at its base was a computer program, but a direct download from one person to another. From one time or timeline to another.

He had to swallow down a bit of gorge as he imagined what that must feel like. Years ago when he had been subjected to the much more advanced machine he had felt like he had the worst hangover of his life for three or four days afterwards. This machine was far cruder.

Chuck moved over towards the server on the far side. He suspected that this was where they downloaded programs and schematics, but at the moment it was empty. He turned around to face Sarah and Casey again, shaking his head.

"Whatever this is I have a feeling we don't want someone else to get a hold of it." Chuck said, his eyes unconsciously drifting towards the chair. Both his partners followed his gaze slightly. Sarah gave an enthusiastic node. Casey grunted.

They split up. Casey and Sara began to pull off pieces more or less at random, from the device as none of them were really sure what might or might not make the contraption no longer viable. Chuck worked on the servers in the previous room. He was torn as to whether or not he should destroy the program completely, or try to download it. The computer and science fiction geek in him wanted so badly to see what they had come up with. But he knew better. As long as this existed, there was a chance it would get into the wrong hands. And so he started working to destroy it.

Since he was in the outer room, he was the one to hear the voices first.

"We have company." He whispered over the com. Chuck realized that he no longer had time for the subtle approach, and he began pulling out the servers and trying to rip out the most important pieces as Sarah and Casey moved into the room.

They pulled the door open and began sneaking through corridors until they caught sight of a small group of men dressed in containment suits. Chuck only got a glimpse of enough of one of them to flash. The man's file suggested he worked for Adelbert de Smet. Chuck supposed that made sense. Leeryder's lab was reasonably close to The Belgian's European headquarters and he was just the sort of man to have both buy weapons from Leeryder, and have no qualms about scavenging off them now. The men turned slightly and saw them.

Chuck forced a flash, but there wasn't exactly a program in the Intersect that fit. Fighting in a containment suit was a bit like fighting the Stay Puff Marshmallow man while dressed as the Michelin Tire Man. If both were terrified of deflating with the slightest touch or jostle since, depending on what exactly had happened here, any breach of their containment suits could be just a fatale as a gunshot.

After a few minutes of being gentle, however, Chuck realized that they'd be stuck here forever if they continued their cautious dance and simply kicked the man that had zeroed in on him in the gut. When his opponent intuitively curled down, he gave him a calculated hit along the neck that knocked him unconscious. With his man down Chuck turned to find he wasn't the only one who had decided to stop being careful. One of the guards had grabbed a letter opener from a desk and threw it towards Sarah.

Instinctively he dove forward, tackling Sarah out of way. He then heard a large crash and looked up, to see that Casey had chucked something at the man that had thrown the dagger like office accessory that was large enough to knock him unconscious. Pushing himself up, Chuck offered Sarah his hand. When she took it a burning pain erupted from his shoulder and his fingers unconsciously weakened. Sarah looked up in concern and he saw her eyes widen. Following her gaze he looked over his own shoulder and saw the letter opener that he had tried to block was sticking out of it.

He stared at it numbly, his brain automatically cataloguing the injury. Ordinarily he would have been lucky. The knife-like object had missed any bones or major arteries. He wouldn't even need that much physical therapy to heal the muscles. But that was only if he lived long enough to worry about it. While the lack of bodies had made Chuck fairly sure they weren't dealing with a biological weapon, he wouldn't have staked his life on that instinct. Now, his suit was breached and he didn't have any other hope.

Casey took out the last remaining man, then turned toward them.

"Get him out of here." He told Sarah. Sarah stared at Casey a moment before his words sunk in. She grabbed Chuck's other arms and pulled, but Chuck held his ground.

"That machine Casey, we can't let anyone get to it." He said, no longer trying to temper the urgency in his voice. If he was going to be dead soon anyway, there was no use in hiding how much he feared what that machine could do.

"I'll take care of it, just go." Casey growled. Chuck finally allowed Sarah go guide him towards the exit.

**XXX**

Sarah held onto Chuck's hand through the thick dish washing glove- like protrusion into his room so tight that she was fairly sure she was cutting off his circulation. The thing was designed to give doctors access to a patient in one of the infectious disease containment rooms without having to put on a containment suit, but as soon as the doctors had finished fussing over Chuck she had claimed one as her own.

After she had finally gotten Chuck to leave the building, he had been placed into his own personal containment bubble. Once they were sure he was stable the bio-hazard team had happily sent him, along with all of their samples to Washington and out of their country. The airplane the CIA had secured them even seemed to sense the urgency she felt and somehow traversed the Atlantic even faster than the normal CIA jets. The doctors had done more tests than she had known existed on Chuck then retreated, leaving her and Chuck alone to wait for the results of both to his own tests and to the tests on the various samples they had taken.

As a rational Agent Sarah knew that this was all precautionary. If there had been a biological weapon or some other substance released in the building that had killed those inside, there would have been bodies. If it had been something so virulent that it had destroyed the bodies before their arrival and it had still been in the air, Chuck wouldn't still be alive.

The worried Girlfriend Sarah, however, couldn't help but be terrified. Sitting in the hospital, she and Chuck found themselves in the oddly reversed position of having him try to comfort her from within his hospital room while she held onto to his hand as if she could literally keep him with her with her grip. He had pulled up a chair to the glass wall so she could hold his hand, and their heads had almost unconsciously leaned together against the glass.

Casey had arrived a few hours after they had. He had moved out of Chuck's eye line and begun to pace not long afterwards. Finally, the doors to the ward opened allowing three men inside. The taller one in the middle wore a lab coat and was obviously a doctor. She was so focused on him, she hardly noticed the other two.

"I'm just here to let you know that we got the results from both the tests done on Agent Bartowski and on the various samples you collected. We didn't find anything unusual. So." Sarah suddenly felt like she could breathe again.

The doctor held up a key card with a flourish and swiped it along the door, unlocking Chuck's room. Chuck ran out and immediately grabbed her, sweeping her up and turning her around into a deep kiss that continued once her feet had hit the ground. She vaguely heard the doctor excuse himself in the background and a chorus of uncomfortable throat clearing from the two remaining men as she sunk into Chuck's lips and finally allowed herself to relax. Then Casey grunted.

"Your gown Bartowski." He ground out. Chuck stiffened and pulled back a little, looking behind himself. He blushed slightly then ran back into his room, coming out a moment later wrapped in a blanket, and still a bit pink. It was then that she noticed exactly who else had come to speak to them. Both men were shorter and slighter than Chuck and Casey, but that really wasn't saying much compared to the general population. One she recognized as Kris Kinkaid, the other appeared familiar but she couldn't place his name.

"I'm Manoosh, by the way." The previously unknown man said holding out his hand. She smiled as she reached out to finally shake the hand to Chuck's friend.

"It's nice to finally meet you." She told him. Chuck exchanged nods with Manoosh and Kincaid before he readjusted his blanket so that he could reach out his arm to take her hand again.

"So, what are you two doing here." He asked, settling in beside her.

"Beckman and Graham asked K.K. to help me look over the virus you found." Manoosh explained. "You were right, by the way. Twice actually." He added. "It was a modified version of K.K.'s virus on Leeryder's main server."

"More like butchered." K.K. grumbled. Casey let out a grunt which Sarah translated as something along the lines of how could you be so concerned about your stupid code when people are missing.

Chuck attempted to defuse the situation slightly by putting his hand up between the two men and seemingly trying to hold Casey back by sheer power of will. And perhaps Casey's fear that in trying to separate them Chuck's blanket would fall off.

"Why don't you explain how the virus was modified?" Chuck encouraged. "Maybe that will give us an idea of what happened."

"Well, my virus, it was designed to be stealthy. Like a software ninja." Kincaid said, becoming slightly enthused as he talked about his creation. "It was supposed to sneak in unnoticed, copy and transfer all the files on a server than erase itself, so no one would know it had been there. But whoever used my virus on that server chopped up the sequence that was designed to start the deletion sequence. Instead it triggered, clumsily I might add, a bit of code that sent a message to one of the lab. We think it turned one of the pieces of equipment there."

"Which lab?" Chuck interrupted, urgently.

"H 15, I think. It was on the third floor." Sarah could see Chuck relax slightly at the realization that it hadn't been the lab with the device they had found that had been activated. While Chuck had yet to directly tell her so, given all that had happened since they had found the odd contraption, Chuck's reaction when he saw the device had all but confirmed to her that he believed it was how Leeryder had been tapping into other timelines.

"The schematics we've found seem to indicate it was used for some sort of testing of micro pulses on Organic matter." Manoosh added. Chuck's brow furrowed a moment before smoothing out again.

"Was there anything else added?" He asked Kincaid.

"Well, after the signal was sent, the modified code started the lock down procedure, and then triggered the deletion sequence. But they twisted it so instead of doing what it was intended for, it would delete everything other than the virus." Kincaid concluded. Chuck stared off a moment before turning back to Manoosh.

"You said I was right twice?" Chuck asked..

"Right. About the ash. You were right to have it tested. There wasn't much left, but we were able to tell what it was." Manoosh hesitated a moment. "Well, it was human remains." Manoosh finally said, looking slightly sick.

"Human remains? What could have done that with lighting up the whole building?" Casey asked. Manoosh only shrugged. Suddenly Chuck's eyes grew wide.

"Firebomb." Chuck yelled out. Both she and Casey looked at him questioningly. He took a breath, then and began to hurriedly speak. "The lab testing micro pulses on organic matter. All living things incinerated but nothing else." Chuck said, as if that was an explanation. Suddenly both Manoosh and Kincaid's eyes went wide.

"Firebomb." They chorused, slightly excited as they caught on to what Chuck was suggesting. Then they quickly seemed to sober.

"And for those of us that don't speak geek?" Casey asked. Manoosh glanced at Casey and her, apparently trying to size up how much he would need to paraphrase.

"There was an episode on, well, on a TV show called Firebomb. In it the bad guys used a Neutron Bomb that sent out micro pulses. It disintegrated organic matter, but left everything else unharmed and it managed to do so without leaving any kind of lingering radiation. So all that was left afterwards was ashes and skeletal remains. " Manoosh answered. "But that kind of technology can't exist, right?" He said, almost pleading.

Sarah looked towards Chuck, and their eyes met momentarily for a knowing glance. It might not exist in their universe, but how to create such a device must have existed in another.

"Apparently." Chuck said, soberly. Both Kincaid and Manoosh appeared to shiver slightly at the thought.

"We can't let something like that sit around." Casey stated.

"You should probable move quickly. Once the European agencies find out that the buildings have been cleared," Manoosh began to point out.

"They won't be so keen on having us be the ones inside." Chuck finished. "Have you guys briefed Beckman or Graham?" He asked, turning back towards his friend and Kincaid. The two shook their heads. "I still need to be officially released. Casey, why don't you go with them to let Graham and Beckman know what's going on? Then Sarah and I can meet you at the airfield. And I can get pants."

Casey grunted in agreement and went with the two other nerds. Sarah suspected it had mostly to do with Casey's desire to have Chuck be fully clothed as soon as possible, rather than an acknowledgement of her boyfriend's ability to plan.

**XXX**

Their second breach of the former headquarters of Leeryder Industries was far more like their usual missions, complete with mission gear, sneaking in, skirting around security and the possibility of being caught by an agent of a foreign government. While the General had officially delayed sending the test results to the local authorities, that didn't mean they hadn't already learned of them, so She, Chuck and Casey decided not to chance being turned away at the entrance.

This time they already knew what they were looking for and where it was, approximately, even if they had no idea what it looked like. Given how Chuck had described the similar device on Television, Sarah doubted it would look similar. As it turned out, it was relatively easily to find. The lab all seemed to entirely center around one box-like metal contraption. They placed the device into a specially constructed container Manoosh had slapped together before they left. Hopefully, it would keep the device from activating, and provide some insulation from its affects if it was accidentally triggered. Theoretically at least. Then they had slipped back out a back entrance.

Despite the relative easiness of the mission, however, Sarah noticed that Chuck still looked weary and worried on the flight home. She knew that partly had to do with the ordeal with his suit and his time in the hospital. She hadn't been the only one scared and the kind of tiredness that follows running on adrenaline for as long as they had wasn't something wiped out by the few hours of sleep they had gotten on the plane over. He also still had a knife wound in his shoulder. Technically he shouldn't have even been allowed back into the field so soon, but it had been a three man job and with so many possible players involved neither Beckman or Graham had trusted another team to do it.

There was more too, through. While they had waited for Chuck to be officially released from the Hospital, he had confirmed her suspicions about the device they had found in the second computer lab. He believed it was Leeryder's way of tapping into other timelines and possibly an antecedent to the device that had sent him back in the first place. Pulling up the armrest between them, she scooted over so that Chuck could wrap his arm around her shoulder.

"What are you worrying about now?" She asked him, resting her head in the crook of his arm. She felt as Chuck let out a sigh then glanced towards where Casey was snoring, to make sure their partner was really asleep.

"If it was K.K.'s virus that was used on Leeryder's database, that means that the Ring now has everything that was on their main server." Chuck told her. "We barely were able to beat them before, who knows what they have access to now."

"Do you think they can replicate the device?" She asked. It was a terrifying thought. An Organization such as the Ring having access to the kinds of weapons and technologies that Leeryder may have collected in their database was scary enough. Having them have access to an unlimited number of possible weapons from an unknown number of timelines and dimensions was something that would be almost unthinkable.

"I don't think so. That system was isolated from everything else and there was no sign that K.K.'s virus was on those servers. But if they did…" He didn't need to finish the thought. She pulled herself closer to him. In any other circumstances the position would have been comforting, cozy even. But despite being tired and cuddled up against each other, neither one of them were able to fall asleep on the way home.


	14. Chuck versus The Missing Pieces

_First I want to apologize for the extremely long time it took me to get this chapter up. While I've had parts of this chapter planned out since the beginning of Fish and some even from early on in Do Over, when it came to actually writing out this final chapter of Fish my muse deserted me. It then began to attack me with plot bunnies for fic for Primeval which I have thus far successfully fought off. Regardless, I hope that now that I'm firmly back into season 2 territory and can look to the episodes themselves for inspiration and my muse will be more cooperative. _

_This will be the last chapter of Fish out of Temporal Waters. The sequel, my "Season 2" will (most likely) be entitled Chuck versus The Omega 302,850,000 after the Omega 13 device from Galaxy Quest. The device allowed one person to jump 13 seconds back in time. According to my calculations, Chuck was forced back approximately 302, 850,000 seconds at the beginning of Do Over. _

_As always constructive criticism is very much appreciated, whether it be about the chapter or about the next story's name. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, I know I haven't gotten back to you like a should, but reading comments really are wonderful. Thank you to everyone who had favorite or alerted as well. _

Chuck versus The Missing Pieces

**September 26, 2008**

When the other Sarah had suggested playing board games to wind down after missions Chuck had originally assumed she had just selected the activity she thought he would like that she could tolerate the most. It didn't take long, however, to realize that the other Sarah actually liked board games. She had her limits, of course, but then again so did he. While he had tried to keep it together for her during that two weeks they had been sidelined in the other timeline, inside he had been bouncing off the walls just as much as her. There was a reason he had been trying to encourage her to play video games with him instead.

The number of interests Sarah held outside of the spy world seemed few and far between, so Chuck was both amused and a bit relieved to find that was one aspect of the other Sarah's personality that was shared with Sarah here. Or at least he was when she and his sister weren't conspiring to crush his tiny plastic forces under their combined Walkertowski Empire.

Ellie had suggested a game night. It was unusual that all four of them had a night free and Ellie had wanted to take advantage of it. He was fairly sure either he or Awesome had suggested Risk, and now both of them regretted it. Despite how Awesome he was, Devon had already been assimilated into Ellie and Sarah's lands, leaving his own tiny parcel of cardboard as the final line of resistance before his sister and girlfriend finished conquering the paper globe, and began the civil war that would inevitably follow. As he looked out over their plastic armies, Chuck suddenly thought of Mal staring out over the opposing forces at Serenity Valley. Just as he was about to pick of the dice to begin his final stand, his own little plastic men were saved by the sound of his telephone.

Glancing down, he saw a text from Beckman. He looked up and gave his sister a slightly apologetic look.

"It's from work. The Nerd Herder on call tonight is in over his head and asked me to help with the call." He told her. Ellie looked a little sour at having her victory stolen from her, but seemed to understand. Awesome looked relieved.

Sarah excused herself, saying she wanted to tag along. Ellie gave her a questioning gaze, only for Sarah to lean in and whisper something that made his sister turn slightly red before joining him to head out to the car. Chuck decided it was better not to ask.

There was a slightly awkward silence as they rode towards the Orange Orange. Not because of anything between them, but because hearing from Beckman just served to remind them both of what they had both so far failed to do. They needed to tell Beckman what they knew about Leeryder. It was one thing when they thought a private company might be able to access other dimensions. But it was completely different when they now knew that an international criminal organization with whose agents had infiltrated virtually every government agency had schematics to weapons for an indeterminable number of universes and possibly for a machine to access more.

After a surprisingly short discussion both he and Sarah had decided that Beckman would be the one to tell. Despite her connection with Graham, even Sarah could concede that, based on what had happened in this and the other timeline, Beckman was more likely to be sympathetic.

The question was what to tell her. For the last couple of weeks while he had healed and Sarah oversaw the last of Castle's construction they had been stuck in limbo, unsure what to do. Anyway they looked at it, it seemed like they would be screwed. He didn't feel comfortable using any of the various back channels he had used to make "anonymous tips" in the past. His experiences had been far too hit or miss for something this sensitive. If they told Beckman that their knowledge about the incursions was from his parents they not only would be admitting to unauthorized and unreported contact with rogue agents, but would bring his parents under even higher scrutiny. If they told anything resembling the truth, he would most likely end up in a bunker somewhere being poked and prodded, while Sarah may well end up in a cell. That was if Beckman didn't simply put them in the CIA psychiatric facility alongside Merlin.

After they reached Castle, Beckman and Graham both seemed to be simmering in anger when they were pulled up onto the Castle's screen. Chuck was slightly relieved that the anger seemed to be directed towards each other. Beckman was the one that appeared to have the upper hand at the moment and began the briefing.

"As you were already aware, a few months ago Nathan Wexler acted as tech op on a black ops mission. What you were not briefed on, was that that mission was to retrieve information from inside Leeryder Industries." She told them. Graham, then continued.

"The founders of Leeryder Industries were both middling physics students until a few years ago. They specialized in a variation of string theory. At some point they decided to create an experiment to test one of the theories. It, according to the university, very literally blew up in their faces. They were expelled. Afterwards they moved across the Atlantic and started Leeryder. It wasn't until we saw some of the technology that began trickling out of the company that we thought there was any reason for concern. Several reports seemed to indicate they might be attempting to create something similar to an Intersect. The team Wexler was directing was sent to retrieve some of the equipment and a copy of the code from the second bank of computers you found on your last mission." At that point, Beckman's faced turned even more sour and she stepped in.

"I had been briefed that the technicians had determined that the servers were a failed attempted at downloading information directly into the brain, and that the items we had, had been destroyed. I have recently learned that was not the case. A CIA lab had been given the items and was attempting to reverse engineer the device." She practically spat.

"And what does the device do?" Chuck feigned curiosity.

"We now that the late founder's of Leeryder's experiments were more successful than their professor believed. We think they found a way to, more or less, sample information from different points in our timeline. And possibly from different timelines altogether.

Chuck didn't have to feign the shocked looked that over took his face.

**September 27, 2008 (Early)**

Casey had asked to be excused from the mission. The fact that he would ask to not to go on a mission after the team being inactive for so long, let alone one that was so potentially important had raised more than a few eyebrows, including her own. Then Sarah remembered that it was Alex's first week-end completely away from home. She really hoped that Casey at least had the presence of mind not to get caught spying on her. And that the frat boys this weekend were far less grabby then the ones during her own college days, if only for their own sakes.

The lab was unsurprisingly generic. It looked like pretty much every other secret government lab she had been to, which pretty much amounted, she suspected, to looking like any underfunded lab anywhere. Security was an eclectic mix of depressingly lax and obsessively complicated. The lab in which the actual device had been stored had a hand scanner on the door but there was only a few cameras in the building, most of which were focused on the one security station leading out of the complex. The hand scanner did, at least, narrow down the suspects considerably. While Sarah knew from experience that they could be faked, that still required someone to gain a copy of the entire palm print of someone who had access, and that most likely meant this had to either be an inside job or had been done with help from someone on the inside.

The thief's timing would, ordinarily, have been a very good one. Most people left quickly on Friday afternoons and the theft shouldn't have been discovered until Monday, giving whoever had stolen the items a two day head start on the investigation. Luckily for the good guys a particularly workaholic scientist had come back into the lab to verify a few of his readings and discovered that the interior of the device was gutted.

The last person who had accessed the lab prior to the one who discovered the theft seemed like the most likely candidate. At least to Sarah.

"He has a spotless record." Chuck insisted again as he gestured towards the screen. He leaned in slightly then. "And I didn't flash on him." The two of them had pulled up the records of the various scientists with access to the room and gone over their records. Chuck, for some reason, was resistant to choosing the easy answer.

"Not everyone is in the Intersect." She pointed out. "And he fits the profile. Overworked. Underpaid. Unappreciated. Money problems."

"I just think we're missing something." Chuck said, with a reluctant sigh. He gave her a thin smile. "But okay."

The first indication that Chuck was right, other than, well, him being Chuck, was when they knocked on the door and rather than having to burst in, the scientist simply opened it. He stood there, dressed in his pajamas, looking rather drowsy and not at all like someone who was planning to run off to an exotic non-extradition location with millions of dollars worth of stolen government equipment.

Then his wife joined them and Sarah realized that the reason he had taken a second mortgage on his house was because they were expecting. He even seemed more angry at the idea that someone had stolen the gadget he had been working on for months than at the fact that they were riffling through his thing.

She wasn't, therefore, surprised when Chuck tugged at her elbow and pulled her slightly aside.

"You were right." Sarah stated preemptively. Chuck looked briefly bewildered.

"I haven't said anything yet." Chuck said. She gave him a slight glare.

"We missed something. This isn't our guy." She stated dully. "The problem is, I'm not sure who else it could be. No one else entered or exited the room until our informant." She questioned aloud. Looking towards Chuck she saw him pause for a moment.

Sometimes watching Chuck figure something out was a bit like watching him flash. Or at least like watching him flash if he did so without looking like he was eating something sour and staring at something very bright at the same time. When the final piece of whatever he was pondering clicked into place, she could practically see the light go on, almost like one of those old cartoons.

"The informant." He said, slightly excitedly, before hurrying over to their back-up to give them instructions.

He caught her up on his hunch on the ride toward the second scientist's house. Chuck theorized that the other man had tried to frame his co-worker, or perhaps simply misdirect them long enough for him to get away. Sarah had been skeptical. After all, if it wasn't for the informant they wouldn't have known anything had been stolen until Monday. But as Chuck pointed out, their potential thief might be brilliant, but according to his record he wasn't very smart when it came to social interaction. Plus he may simply have had a grudge against the other man. Sarah decided, given that they had no other clues, to see how Chuck's theory played out.

When they got the new suspect's house, everything was dark. No one answered their knocks. Sarah stood back and allowed Chuck to moved towards the door. She decided not to argue that she could have simply picked the lock. Chuck seemed to get a certain thrill from kicking doors open. Inside was almost eerily quiet. They kept together as they swept the first floor, remembering what had happened when they had split up in France.

They found their thief lying naked in the master bed, with his throat slit. Chuck stepped out of the room quietly to call the others. Standing there she moved closer, taking a preliminary look at the body. The scene had immediately called to mind the one they had found in Shaw's hotel room. However, one look at the wound destroyed any thoughts she might have had that the two men had been killed by the same person. Whereas the wound on Shaw had been rough and jagged, created by a weapon of opportunity, this was one smooth, clean cut. Whoever had killed the man in front of her had known what they were doing and used a weapon designed for the deed.

Both they, and the back-up team searched the house. But whoever had killed their thief had already taken the parts of the device and disappeared. 

**September 28, 2008**

Langston Graham sank down into the couch in his living room and began picking at the sandwich his wife had left for him in the refrigerator. He had missed dinner, again. He had stayed late to deal with the aftermath of the of the California team's latest mission. Not for the first time did he wish he hadn't agreed to that operation. And that woman, Beckman. He suppose he shouldn't blame her, she had no idea what kind of powder keg they were sitting on. That, at least, the CIA had been able to successfully keep secret even from the NSA.

Beckman had known Mary Gunter, when they were both young female agents in what was still more or less a boys club. She knew about Frost and that her former colleague had eventually turned traitor, but she didn't know that she was also Mary Bartowski, or that Stephen Bartowski was the infamous Orion the NSA had been searching for over twenty years. She didn't know that her new star team was headed by a time bomb waiting to blow up in their faces.

Chuck Bartowski was the child of two traitors. He had been raised by people who had maneuvered and manipulated the government into giving them exactly what they needed before going rogue. Stephen Bartowski had been a brilliant scientist. So brilliant that Graham's own predecessors had overlooked his flaws so that he would continue working with them.

Graham couldn't understand it. The elder Bartowski had conspired with a foreign operative. His known friend. He had given that operative classified government research and information without any kind of authorization and than that operative had gone on to use that information to create one of the more successful and deadliest arms empire in the world. And the brass before him hadn't done anything. They had gone along with his idiotic pleas that it was an accident because they wanted his research. Even once Bartow ski's wife went rogue and took another decade's worth of top secret information with her to become the main enforcer for Bartowski's former friend they had kept him on. It was only when they had finally closed out Bartowski's pet project, the creation of a human Intersect, in favor of a computerized model with limited human downloads that they had finally seen his true colors. Bartowski hadn't just left the project. He had gone underground and erased any way to trace him. It was then that they had realized that NSA had been searching for Orion for years without knowing he was CIA. That Bartowski had been going behind their backs and causing havoc with his own rogue mission for years.

When Graham had seen the current Bartowski on the list of possible recruits Fleming had sent to him, his knee jerk reaction had been to chuck the kid, pardon the pun, off immediately. But the old adage to "keep your enemies closer" was true and he elected to keep Bartowski as close as possible. If this was trap, he was going to be right on top of it, ready to spring his own. To his surprise it seemed that the younger Bartowski didn't have any clue who or what he parents actually were. That hadn't meant he let down his guard down. Even if the elder Bartowskis hadn't bothered to tell their children anything about the world they lived in, that didn't mean they wouldn't try to draw their son into their plans now that he had access, or that he wouldn't follow their example all on his own. And now he had the very thing in his head that the senior Bartowski had used to help set his "friend" up with an illegal empire to begin with.

Even if you were one of the exceedingly charitable people who believed that the fowl up during Bartowski's initial act of treason had been unintentional, that only meant that Bartowski jr. now had that same time bomb in his head. And Beckman was trusting him with the highly confidential information and a huge degrees of autonomy with only a has been Major that had long ago gone soft to reign him in.

Graham could admit he hadn't made the best choice of operative for the team either. He had thought Sarah's previous partnership with Bartowski would have hardened her against his peculiar but surprisingly effective form of charm. Instead she ended up sleeping with him. He should have known. Sarah had never met his expectation of her. Instead of her morally questionable background making her better able to deal with the grey area agents were often forced to work in, it only seemed to make her more sympathetic to those who hadn't been given the second chance she had.

Graham was beginning to contemplate setting up an accident for Bartowski. It was an extreme measure, and one he didn't take lightly, despite what his colleague might think of him. Especially given the possible help Bartowski might be in the fight against the Ring. But it would be worth it if I it stopped them from having to deal with another Alexi Volkoff, or worse, Mary and Stephen Bartowski.

Graham didn't, however, have a chance for his thought to precipitate into a more cohesive plan. Just as he contemplated his operative's deaths, the universe chose to demonstrate its sense of humor and a sniper's bullet tore through his skull.

**XXX**

As soon as she was sure she had made the shot, the sniper began to disassemble her rifle and wipe away any evidence she may have left on it. Despite how little she thought of her former employers she knew even they would be able to find someone who could trace the bullet that had killed their now former director to this apartment and this gun, the trick was making sure that neither was then tied to her. Given the circumstances, she doubted that would be possible, but she still wasn't about to take any chances.

Once she had cleaned off the last possible trace of herself from the area, she took just a moment to let everything sink in. Technically this hadn't been a revenge mission. Graham's death had been key to the Ring's current plans. They wouldn't have allowed her to kill him otherwise. But she also knew that they had given her this operation as a reward for her recent activities. The man whose brains she'd just splattered all over his overpriced wallpaper wasn't the one who had ordered her death. But she had no doubt that if this Graham had had the same information as the one in her dimension, he would have made the same decision. That was enough for her to feel that she had gained some measure of justice with the recent shot.

She moved over towards the mirror and made sure her chosen disguise was on correctly, then brought her hand up to kiss the two entwined rings on her left ring finger. They weren't, strictly speaking, her wedding rings. These ones had been exchanged as part of the ceremony between the her of this reality and the sick twisted version of her husband that she had found herself with when she had woken up in this reality in Leeryder's lab. But they were the closest things she had to a memento of her own beloved and she hope that was enough for them to give her a bit of luck. Taking a breath she grabbed the bag containing the only part of her equipment she was bringing with and headed out.

**September 29, 2008**

Chuck was woken up to the sound of his radio alarm. He quickly reached over, trying to stop the blaring Huey Lewis song from waking up Sarah. Looking over, he saw her stir next to him, but she seemed to be still asleep. Quietly he slipped out of bed and headed towards the bathroom. After turning on the shower he reached over to lock the door, but paused a moment. Ellie and Devon should still be sleeping off their last long shift at the hospital and if he was wrong and Sarah was waking up, he really wouldn't mind running a bit late to work if it meant she joined him.

Chuck shed the boxers and t-shirt he had had worn last night and headed into the shower. A few minutes later he was rewarded by seeing his beautiful, slightly drowsy girlfriend stumble into the bathroom after him. He smiled as he watched her perform a bit of an impromptu striptease on the other side of the already fogging glass before stepping into the shower beside him.

He had already mostly washed already and decided to take it upon himself to help Sarah, scrub. They were so involved in scrubbing that they didn't hear the soft click of the door opening again. Sarah did, however, hear the squeaking of someone clearing off the misted mirror, and quickly dove to stand behind him. In the now clear glass he saw Ellie's eyes widen slightly as she saw their reflection, before she covered her face with her hands and screamed. He could feel Sarah's whole body seem to grimace behind him as his sister ran out babbling about being blinded.

"We really need to start looking for our own place." He finally said. He felt Sarah's head nod against his shoulder from where she still hid behind him.

After quickly, actually, scrubbing down they both threw on clothes and headed awkwardly towards the dining room. Devon, apparently, was also already awake. He looked perfectly at ease, and even gave Chuck a bit of knowing smile and a slap on the back while Ellie sat stiffly at the table holding her coffee cup almost protectively as she attempted to look everywhere but at him and Sarah.

After the two of them sat at the table there was an awkward silence for a few moments, until Ellie finally spoke, keeping her eyes firmly away from her brother.

"Your phones both rang when you were." She floundered a second. "When you were getting ready." She said, before taking another huge gulp of coffee. Chuck glanced towards Sarah, and they both excused themselves and headed towards their room. Beckman had texted both of them to go to the Castle. After a rather uncomfortable round of goodbyes, they headed out.

The fact that Beckman was the only one on the screen when the briefing started wasn't unusual. The look on her face was. She almost looked nervous.

"Director Graham was shot and killed at his home earlier today." She said, without any real preamble. Chuck's eyes automatically darted towards Sarah. Despite his own feelings towards Graham, the director had still been very important to Sarah. He had been her mentor and had saved her, both from her father's enemies and from falling in her father's footsteps. He saw her wince slightly at the news, before standing up again, a bit too straight and a bit too impassively.

"When are we leaving for Washington?" She asked Beckman in an even tone.

"You are not. The FBI are handling the investigation." Beckman stated.

"You can't be serious." Sarah said in disbelief.

"In case you've forgotten Agent Walker, the CIA do not have jurisdiction domestically." Beckman said warningly.

"That's never stopped you from assigning us an investigation before."

"Not for something as high profile as this." Beckman answered back, before adding more gently. "I think you'll agree we don't want whoever killed Graham to avoid their due punishment because of a technicality?" Chuck glanced over. Sarah screwed up her lips into a sour expression, but nodded. Beckman sighed, suddenly looking weary, before her face softened slightly.

"I can tell you this. The FBI found one sample of DNA in the apartment they believe the shot came from that didn't match the late owner. It didn't register on their databases, but we were able to give the sample to our technicians and they found two partial matches in our own databases."

"What exactly does that mean?" He asked.

"There are a number of people, Agents or those suspects who we don't want the local authorities to attempt to contain whose DNA are only in our own database. It could mean that the culprit is the child of two of these individuals. However, in this case, given who the matches are and how the genes are arranged that seems unlikely." Beckman told them.

"Why?" Chuck asked, warily.

"Because DNA was a partial match to both Laura Cleary and Evelyn Shaw."


End file.
